Alfonso Cuaron is riding high in Venice once again, taking home the Golden Lion for his critically acclaimed Roma. The prize was given to him by jury president and friend Guillermo del Toro, who joked that he wasn’t sure if he could pronounce his name. Cuaron previously conquered the Lido in 2013 with Gravity, with opened the festival out of competition, and went on to win seven Academy Awards.
The Three Amigos, as del Toro, Cuaron and Inarritu are known, are officially unstoppable at the Italian festival. Last year del Toro took home the Golden Lion for The Shape of Water before going on to win best picture at the Oscars. And Inarritu premiered Birdman in Venice in 2014 before going on to win best picture. Inarritu, who has been in the Venice competition lineup twice, is now the lone amigo without a Lion.
Roma, co-produced by Participant Media and Esperanto Filmoj, is a semi-autobiographical black-and-white film on his early upbringing in 1970s Mexico City, seen through the eyes of his housekeeper Cleo. While Netflix has not yet committed to a theatrical release before it hits the streamer, this prize will certainly put weight behind an Oscar campaign for the film.
Fox Searchlight also has a serious Oscar contender on its hands with grand jury prize winner, Yorgos Lanthimos’ The Favourite, a period drama about the politic and romantic inner workings of a royal court. Olivia Colman also won the Volpi Cup for best actress for her incredible turn as Queen Anne in the film.
And Willem Dafoe won the Volpi Cup for best actor for taking on the role of tormented artist Vincent van Gogh in Julien Schnabel’s non-traditional biopic At Eternity’s Gate, which is also getting a lot of Oscar buzz for Dafoe in what many critics are calling the role of his career.
Joel and Ethan Coen won best screenplay for The Ballad of Buster Scruggs. Tim Blake Nelson accepted the award on their behalf, calling them in addition to great filmmakers, “two of the most decent and generous people I know.”
Jennifer Kent’s The Nightingale, the only female-directed film in competition, took home the special jury prize. It stars Aisling Franciosi as a young Irish convict who hunts the man who wronged her with the help of an aboriginal tracker played by Baykali Ganambarr.
“I would also like to say to all those women out there wanting to make films, please go and do it. We need you. The feminine force is the most powerful and healing force on the planet,” said Kent on accepting the award. “I’m confident next year and the year after we’ll see more and more women inhabiting this space.”
Ganambarr also won the Marcello Mastroianni actor award for best new talent and thanked the film “for not sugarcoating our past.”
“It is only through confronting pain,” he said, “that we heal the hurt.”
While prior juries have often highlight films that may not receive much love after their festival circuit, the lineup this year was weighted with Oscar favorites, so it’s no surprise that the winners aligned with critical favorites. Among Italian and foreign press, the best reviewed film of the festival was Roma (Alfonso Cuaron), followed by The Sisters Brothers (Jacques Audiard) and The Favourite (Yorgos Lanthimos). The Mountain (Rick Alverson) received the lowest average reviewed score among critics.
Venice also held its second-ever VR jury this year, led by Susanne Bier. While other festivals are quickly establish VR competitions, Venice was one of the first to make a large investment into the medium, and the technology from the first year to the second is already progressing in leaps and bounds.
Best VR film, Spheres, an experience that takes viewers into outer space to explore the sounds of the cosmos is the first VR film acquired at a festival in a seven-figure deal. “In Virtual Reality the possibilities of storytelling are infinite, like the darkest edges of the Universe,” Spheres creator McNitt told THR after receiving her award. “This is just the beginning of the possibilities this new form of storytelling offers.”
(Excerpt) Read more in: The Hollywood Reporter