Golden Lion Of The 78th Venice Film Festival Awarded To Audrey Diwan's Happening

Yesterday the Golden Lion of the 78th Venice International Film Festival landed in the hands of the French director Audrey Diwan for her film Happening (L’'événement). The Venezia 78 Jury, chaired by Bong Joon Ho and comprised of Saverio Costanzo, Virginie Efira, Cynthia Erivo, Sarah Gadon, Alexander Nanau and Chloé Zhao have viewed all 21 films in competition and decided that this was the one worth the highest award of the festival.

The film plot takes place in France in 1963 where a bright student Anne finds she is pregnant but doesn't want to lose an opportunity to finish her studies and claim her promising future. So she is determined to act despite pain and shame and even the risk to end behind the bars. According to Audrey Divan, "what path is there for a young woman faced with a clandestine abortion? Often, we can only guess at the response. When I decided to adapt Annie Ernaux’s L’événement, I tried to find a way to capture the physical nature of the experience, to take into account the fleshly dimension of the journey. My hope is that the experience transcends the period of the story and the gender barrier. The fate of the young women who have had recourse to such operations is risky, intolerable. All I did was to look for the simple gesture, to the essence, that could convey it."

The Jury also decided on the following distrubution of Venezia 78 Competition awards:

SILVER LION – GRAND JURY PRIZE to: È STATA LA MANO DI DIO (THE HAND OF GOD) by Paolo Sorrentino (Italy)

SILVER LION – AWARD FOR BEST DIRECTOR to: Jane Campion for the film THE POWER OF THE DOG (New Zealand, Australia)

COPPA VOLPI for Best Actress: Penélope Cruz in the film MADRES PARALELAS (PARALLEL MOTHERS) by Pedro Almodóvar (Spain)

COPPA VOLPI for Best Actor: John Arcilla in the film ON THE JOB: THE MISSING 8 by Erik Matti (Philippines)

AWARD FOR BEST SCREENPLAY to: Maggie Gyllenhaal for the film THE LOST DAUGHTER by Maggie Gyllenhaal (Greece, USA, UK, Israel)

SPECIAL JURY PRIZE to: IL BUCO by Michelangelo Frammartino (Italy, France, Germany)

MARCELLO MASTROIANNI AWARD for Best Young Actor or Actress to: Filippo Scotti in the film È STATA LA MANO DI DIO (THE HAND OF GOD) by Paolo Sorrentino (Italy)

Another competition of the festival - Orizzonti with the Jury chaired by Jasmila Žbanić after screening 19 feature-length films and 12 short films in competition, has decided the Orizzonti Award for Best Film to be handed to Piligrimai (Pilgrims) by the Lithuanian director Laurynas Bareiša. Orizzonti Award for Best Short Film was awarded to Los Huesos (The Bones) by Cristóbal León and Joaquín Cociña (Chile).