Spain’s Pedro Almodovar gained the Venice Film Festival’s Golden Lion award Saturday for his pro-euthanasia movie “The Room Next Door,” with performing prizes for different movies additionally going to Nicole Kidman and Frenchman Vincent Lindon.
The feminine friendship end-of-life movie starring Tilda Swinton and Julianne Moore was Almodovar’s first English-language feature-length movie.
In the movie – which, like a lot of Almodovar’s, hinges on robust feminine characters – Swinton performs a battle correspondent affected by terminal most cancers. She asks her pal, performed by Moore, to be at her aspect when she takes her personal life.
“I believe saying goodbye to this world cleanly and with dignity is a fundamental right of every human being,” Almodovar informed the viewers after accepting his award. “It is not a political issue, but a human one.”
He acknowledged, “This right goes against any religion or creed with God as the only source of life.”
“I would ask practitioners of any creed to respect and not intervene in individual decisions in this regard,” mentioned the prolific director, whose movies lately have thought of themes of demise or bodily decline.
President of the jury, French actor Isabelle Huppert, mentioned the movie tackled necessary points thoughtfully and with out melodrama. She paid tribute, too, to the performances of the 2 lead actors.
Almodovar was honored by Venice with a profession achievement award 5 years in the past.
‘My coronary heart is damaged’
Kidman was awarded the Best Actress award for her fearless flip as a CEO who has an affair with an intern within the erotic thriller “Babygirl,” however she was unable to gather the prize following the sudden demise of her mom.
“My heart is broken,” mentioned the Australian actress in a press release learn onstage on her behalf by the movie’s Dutch director, Halina Reijn.
“I’m in shock and have to go to my family. But this award is for her. She shaped me, she guided me, and she made me,” she mentioned.
Veteran French actor Vincent Lindon gained the Best Actor award for “The Quiet Son,” through which he performs a single father struggling to stop his teenage son from being swept up in far-right extremism.
He gained towards well-received performances from former Bond actor Daniel Craig in “Queer” and Adrien Brody in “The Brutalist.”
The Grand Jury Prize, thought of a runner-up to the Golden Lion, went to the Italian movie “Vermiglio” by director Maura Delpero, which handled the results of World War Two on an remoted mountain village.
Stars galore
The winners had been amongst 21 contenders vying for the highest prize in a competition that swarmed with high Hollywood expertise, from Angelina Jolie to George Clooney.
Venice’s purple carpet this season noticed the likes of Lady Gaga, starring with Joaquin Phoenix within the sequel to Todd Phillips’ antihero movie “Joker,” in addition to Brad Pitt, whose motion comedy “Wolfs” with Clooney premiered out of competitors.
Jolie took on the opera diva Maria Callas function in Pablo Larrain’s “Maria.”
Films this 12 months didn’t draw back from tough subject material, whether or not modern or historic.
Abortion (“April”), white supremacy (“The Order”), the Mafia (“Sicilian Letters”), and enforced disappearances and killings throughout Brazil’s army dictatorship (“I’m Still Here”) had been all examined in the primary competitors movies.
Several movies explored battle and its crushing repercussions, whether or not documentaries on the battle in Ukraine or the battle in Gaza.
Among probably the most controversial was “Russians at War” by Russian-Canadian filmmaker Anastasia Trofimova, who went behind the traces of the Ukraine battle with Russian troopers.
“Russian soldiers are not someone whose voices are heard,” Trofimova informed journalists forward of the screening.
But the movie prompted outrage in Ukrainian cultural and political circles for its inclusion at Venice, with many casting it as a pro-Kremlin movie searching for to whitewash Russia’s assault.
The competition honored American actress Sigourney Weaver and Australian director Peter Weir with lifetime achievement awards.
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