Starring Tilda Swinton and Julianne Moore, the movie obtained an 18-minute standing ovation when it premiered at Venice
VENICE , Italy – Spanish director Pedro Almodovar’s first English-language film, The Room Subsequent Door, which tackles the hefty themes of euthanasia and local weather change, gained the prestigious Golden Lion award on the Venice Movie Pageant on Saturday, September 7.
Starring Tilda Swinton and Julianne Moore, the movie obtained an 18-minute standing ovation when it premiered at Venice earlier within the week – one of many longest in latest reminiscence.
Almodovar is a darling of the pageant circuit and was awarded a lifetime achievement award at Venice in 2019 for his daring, irreverent, and infrequently humorous Spanish-language options.
He additionally gained an Oscar in the perfect international language class for his 1999 movie All About My Mom.
Now aged 74, he has determined to attempt his hand at English, focusing his lens on questions of life, demise and friendship. Talking after accumulating his prize, he stated euthanasia shouldn’t be blocked by politics or faith.
“I imagine that saying goodbye to this world cleanly and with dignity is a elementary proper of each human being,” he stated, talking in Spanish.
He additionally thanked his two feminine stars for his or her performances.
“This award actually belongs to them, it’s a movie about two ladies and the 2 ladies are Julianne and Tilda,” he stated.
Whereas The Room Subsequent Door had been extensively tipped to win, the runner-up Silver Lion award was a shock, going to Italian director Maura Delpero for her slow-paced drama set within the Italian Alps throughout World Struggle Two – Vermiglio.
Australia’s Nicole Kidman gained the perfect actress award for her risque position within the erotic Babygirl, the place she performs a hard-nosed CEO, who jeopardizes each her profession and her household by having a poisonous affair with a younger, manipulative intern.
Kidman was in Venice on Saturday, however didn’t attend the awards ceremony after studying that her mom had died unexpectedly.
France’s Vincent Lindon was named finest actor for The Quiet Son, a topical, French-language drama a couple of household torn aside by extreme-right radicalism.
The perfect director award went to American Brady Corbet for his 3-1/2 hour-long film The Brutalist, which was shot on 70mm celluloid and recounts the epic story of a Hungarian Holocaust survivor performed by Adrien Brody, who seeks to rebuild his life in the USA.
“We now have the ability to help one another and inform the Goliath companies that attempt to push us round: ‘No, it’s three-and-a-half hours lengthy and it’s on 70mm,” he advised the auditorium on Saturday.
Highway to Oscars
The pageant marks the beginning of the awards season and repeatedly throws up huge favorites for the Oscars, with eight of the previous 12 finest director awards on the Oscars going to movies that debuted at Venice.
The prize for finest screenplay went to Murilo Hauser and Heitor Lorega for I’m Nonetheless Right here, a movie about Brazil’s navy dictatorship, whereas the particular jury award went to the abortion drama April, by Georgian director Dea Kulumbegashvili.
Sarah Friedland, an American-Jewish filmmaker, gained the perfect director award for Acquainted Contact in Venice’s Horizons part, which runs alongside the primary competitors. She used her acceptance speech to denounce Israel’s conflict in Gaza.
“I have to observe I’m accepting this award on the 336th day of Israel’s genocide in Gaza and 76th yr of occupation,” she stated to loud applause. “I imagine it’s our accountability as movie staff … to deal with Israel’s impunity on the worldwide stage.”
Among the many motion pictures that left Venice’s Lido island empty-handed had been Todd Phillips’s Joker: Folie à Deux, starring Joaquin Phoenix and Girl Gaga, the sequel to his authentic The Joker which claimed the highest prize right here in 2019.
Luca Guadagnino’s Queer, with Daniel Craig enjoying a homosexual drug addict, and Pablo Larrain’s Maria Callas biopic “Maria”, starring Angelina Jolie because the celebrated Greek soprano, additionally gained plaudits from the critics however didn’t get any awards.
The Venice jury this yr was headed by French actress Isabelle Huppert. – Rappler.com
