Venice Film Festival
The 2014 edition of Venice Film Festival will be remembered for a series of remarkable films that have conquered not only the jury headed by the French composer Alexandre Desplat, but also the public present on the Lido which have certainly enjoyed to watch the high quality movies in competition. It was not easy to choose the winners, the jury didn’t have an easy task, but the choices they made were for sure the best ones. Let start with the major prizes.
The Golden Lion went this year to a bird and not any kind of bird, a very special bird and certainly not the one many were expecting to be a winner. Alejandro G. Inarritu’s Birdman presented at the opening night was shut out of the awards. The absolute winner is Roy Andersson’s A Pigeon Sat On a Branch Reflecting On Existence, probably the best film at the Venice Festival and certainly the one with the drollest title. Crazy, intelligent, absurd and well-received by critics this metaphysical film is the final part of a trilogy about what it means to be a human being, started with 2000’s Songs From The Second Floor and followed by You, The living from 2007.
The Russian director Andrei Konchalovsky was awarded with the Silver Lion for The Postman’s White Nights. The film, shot in a post-documentary stile using unprofessional actors playing themselves, tells a story of the people living in a remote Russian village whose main contact with the outside world is a postman. Taking the prize, Konchalovsky said he felt like a child on Christmas, although, 52 years ago he received his first Golden Lion.
The big surprise was the Volpi Cup, assigned this year both for the Best Actor and the Best Actress, to the protagonists of the same film, Hungry Hearts directed by Saverio Costanzo. The Italian film promoting the dark relationship drama tells the story about a couple in New York, interpreted magnificently by Adam Driver and Alba Rohrwacher, expecting their first child in conditions where a future mother is mentally ill.
A year after documentary was for the first time included in competition, Joshua Oppenheimer’s The Look of Silence, follow-up doc to The Act of Killing, won the Grand Jury Prize. After examining Indonesian genocide from the perpetrator’s point of view in the first documentary, in The Look of Silence the author takes into consideration the legacy of those murders from the victim’s point of view.
As far as other prizes are concerned, for the Best Screenplay was awarded the Iranian film Ghesseha, directed by Rakshan Banietemad. Special Jury Prize went to a Turkish Sivas of Kaan Mujdeci. Romain Paul, protagonist of the French Movie Le Dernier Coup De Marteau, won Marcello Mastroianni Award for the Best New Young Actor. Lion of the Future - Luigi De Laurentiis Venice Award for a debut film went to Chaitanya Tamhane’s Court, which also won the prize for the Best Film in the Venice Horizons section. Naji Abu Nowar, director of film Theeb was selected in Venice Horizons as the Best Director. Special Jury Prize went to Franco Moresco’s Berlsconi. For the Best Actor was elected Emir Hadzihafizbegovic from These Are The Rules, while Sidi Saleh’s Maryam was chosen as the Best Short Film. As the Best Restoration, concerning Venice Classics, was awarded Ettore Scola’s Una Giornata Particolare. The Serbian No One’s Child, by Vuk Ršumović, won the RaroVideo Audience Award for the Best Film at the 29th International Critics’ Week, part as well of the Venice Film Festival.
Disappointment for two Italian films, Black Souls, a mafia dramma by Francesco Munzi and The Fabulous Young Man by Mario Martone, a biopic of beloved Italian Poet Giacomo Leopardi, shot out of the awards. In addition, Gabriele Salvatores’ Italy in a Day, that had a world premiere in Venice out of competition, received a warm welcome. Produced by Ridley Scott, the 84 -minute film presents micro-moments in the lives of over 600 ordinary people and has a clear message: wherever we live in the western world, our lives are similar.
©2014 Emina Ristovic; The Italian Heritage Magazine
The Golden Lion went this year to a bird and not any kind of bird, a very special bird and certainly not the one many were expecting to be a winner. Alejandro G. Inarritu’s Birdman presented at the opening night was shut out of the awards. The absolute winner is Roy Andersson’s A Pigeon Sat On a Branch Reflecting On Existence, probably the best film at the Venice Festival and certainly the one with the drollest title. Crazy, intelligent, absurd and well-received by critics this metaphysical film is the final part of a trilogy about what it means to be a human being, started with 2000’s Songs From The Second Floor and followed by You, The living from 2007.
The Russian director Andrei Konchalovsky was awarded with the Silver Lion for The Postman’s White Nights. The film, shot in a post-documentary stile using unprofessional actors playing themselves, tells a story of the people living in a remote Russian village whose main contact with the outside world is a postman. Taking the prize, Konchalovsky said he felt like a child on Christmas, although, 52 years ago he received his first Golden Lion.
The big surprise was the Volpi Cup, assigned this year both for the Best Actor and the Best Actress, to the protagonists of the same film, Hungry Hearts directed by Saverio Costanzo. The Italian film promoting the dark relationship drama tells the story about a couple in New York, interpreted magnificently by Adam Driver and Alba Rohrwacher, expecting their first child in conditions where a future mother is mentally ill.
A year after documentary was for the first time included in competition, Joshua Oppenheimer’s The Look of Silence, follow-up doc to The Act of Killing, won the Grand Jury Prize. After examining Indonesian genocide from the perpetrator’s point of view in the first documentary, in The Look of Silence the author takes into consideration the legacy of those murders from the victim’s point of view.
As far as other prizes are concerned, for the Best Screenplay was awarded the Iranian film Ghesseha, directed by Rakshan Banietemad. Special Jury Prize went to a Turkish Sivas of Kaan Mujdeci. Romain Paul, protagonist of the French Movie Le Dernier Coup De Marteau, won Marcello Mastroianni Award for the Best New Young Actor. Lion of the Future - Luigi De Laurentiis Venice Award for a debut film went to Chaitanya Tamhane’s Court, which also won the prize for the Best Film in the Venice Horizons section. Naji Abu Nowar, director of film Theeb was selected in Venice Horizons as the Best Director. Special Jury Prize went to Franco Moresco’s Berlsconi. For the Best Actor was elected Emir Hadzihafizbegovic from These Are The Rules, while Sidi Saleh’s Maryam was chosen as the Best Short Film. As the Best Restoration, concerning Venice Classics, was awarded Ettore Scola’s Una Giornata Particolare. The Serbian No One’s Child, by Vuk Ršumović, won the RaroVideo Audience Award for the Best Film at the 29th International Critics’ Week, part as well of the Venice Film Festival.
Disappointment for two Italian films, Black Souls, a mafia dramma by Francesco Munzi and The Fabulous Young Man by Mario Martone, a biopic of beloved Italian Poet Giacomo Leopardi, shot out of the awards. In addition, Gabriele Salvatores’ Italy in a Day, that had a world premiere in Venice out of competition, received a warm welcome. Produced by Ridley Scott, the 84 -minute film presents micro-moments in the lives of over 600 ordinary people and has a clear message: wherever we live in the western world, our lives are similar.
©2014 Emina Ristovic; The Italian Heritage Magazine