The 83rd Venice International Film Festival has concluded in Venice, Italy, with Danish filmmaker May el-Toukhy’s Woman Unknown winning the festival’s top prize, the Golden Lion.
The awards were announced around 1am Bangladesh time. The film also earned its lead actress Mathilde Arcel the Best Actress award, while Hollywood star John Malkovich won Best Actor for his performance in Martin McDonagh’s Wild Horse Nine.
Political and humanitarian realities were also at the centre of this year’s festival. Israeli filmmakers Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor’s documentary NAZA won the Special Jury Prize.
The film received a record-breaking standing ovation of around 25 minutes after its premiere, becoming one of the festival’s most talked-about events.
Woman Unknown is set in post-World War II Denmark. Arcel plays Marie, a young nanny and housemaid who is preparing to marry her wealthy, older employer, a widower. However, a secret from her wartime past threatens the new life and social position she has built.
The film explores women’s status, class divisions and the lasting impact of the war.
The Best Actress award was particularly significant for Arcel as Woman Unknown is her first leading role and her first appearance at a major international film festival. After receiving the award, she described sharing the Venice stage with leading filmmakers and performers as a great honour.
Winning the Golden Lion was also a major achievement for el-Toukhy. She was the only female director among the 21 films in the main competition, and her victory made her the eighth woman to win the festival’s top prize.
NAZA generated some of the festival’s strongest political discussion.
The documentary features testimony from 24 Israeli military intelligence officers and soldiers about systems used to identify targets in Gaza. The filmmakers conducted the interviews in secret and concealed the identities of the participants.
The film’s title comes from an Israeli military term referring to the expected number of civilian casualties from an airstrike. The documentary examines the systems and practices used in Israel’s military campaign in Gaza.
Malkovich’s Best Actor award was another major highlight. The 72-year-old actor plays a veteran CIA agent in Wild Horse Nine, which is set around the 1973 Chilean coup. The film stars Malkovich alongside Sam Rockwell and combines dark humour with a story about CIA agents in Chile.
Malkovich was not present at the ceremony because he was filming another project in Montreal. He accepted the award through a video message and thanked the jury, director Martin McDonagh and his co-star Sam Rockwell.
South Korean filmmaker Lee Chang-dong’s Possible Love won the Grand Jury Prize. Ilya Khrzhanovsky received the Silver Lion for Best Director for DAU, while Stéphane Brizé, Coralie Amedeo and Olivier Gorce won Best Screenplay for A Good Little Soldier.
Malou Khebizi received the Marcello Mastroianni Award for Best Emerging Actor for A Place To Heal.
Auguste Bernard Kouemo Yanghu’s House of the Wind won the Luigi De Laurentiis Award for Best Debut Film, while Alina Şerban’s I Matter received the Armani Beauty Audience Award.
George Clooney and Ellen Burstyn received the festival’s lifetime achievement honours. The 83rd Venice International Film Festival began on 2 September and concluded on September 12 with the awards ceremony, bringing the latest edition of the world’s oldest film festival to a close.
