Pedro Almodóvar’s The Room Next Door, the Spanish director’s first film in English, has won the Golden Lion, the top prize, at the Venice International Film Festival. The most memorable moment of the ceremony, taking place at the festival’s campus on the Lido, came when Nicole Kidman, winning best actress, paid tribute through a proxy to her recently deceased mother.
This is, astonishingly, the first time Almodóvar has won the premiere award at one of the “big three” European festivals: Venice, Cannes and Berlin. Not surprisingly, the audience at the Sala Grande exploded into noisy congratulation. “I would like to dedicate it to my family,” he said from the podium. “I’m not always so happy as I am now. This movie, The Room Next Door is my first movie in English, but the spirit is Spanish.”
Based on a novel by Sigrid Nunez, the film stars Tilda Swinton as a war reporter, ill with cancer, who persuades an old friend, played by Julianne Moore, to assist in her own euthanasia. The two actors play movingly off one another in a film alive with Almodóvar’s bold colours. It is set to open in Ireland at the end of October.
Kidman, as busy as at any point in her career, took best actress for her brave performance as a senior executive carrying on a passionate affair with a younger intern in Halina Reijn’s sharp, sexually explicit Babygirl. Kidman was not in the auditorium, but her director was there to deliver a notably moving speech.
“Today I arrived in Venice to find out, shortly after, that my beautiful, brave mother, Janelle N Kidman has just passed,” Reijn read. “I’m in shock and I have to go to my family. But this award is for her. She shaped me, she guided me and she made me. I’m beyond grateful that I get to say her name to all of you, through Halina. The collision of life and art is heartbreaking. And my heart is broken.”
The most talked about film of the festival was surely Brady Corbet’s The Brutalist. By the time the ceremony came around, most pundits had it down as odds-on favourite for the Lion. The American director – formally a fresh-faced actor – seemed, nonetheless, more than happy to settle for the best director prize. Adrien Brody plays an architect, recently arrived to the US from Hungary, who, in the years after the second World War, becomes embroiled with a sinister oligarch played by Guy Pearce. Three and a half hours long (with an intermission), the picture played to raves on the first weekend of the event.
“I’m going to try and make this as fast as possible,” Corbet said. “But, as you may have gathered from watching my film, brevity has never been my strong suit. Thank you to the jury for watching so many films, including my own three and a half-hour contribution. I’ve been there and I am sympathetic. It’s a real job to watch so many films. Thank you for not holding its length against me.”
Corbet first attracted attention when The Childhood of a Leader, the first of his three features, won him the Lion of the Future award at the 2015 Venice festival. “One of the great honours of my life has been to present a film alongside this extraordinary selection of filmmakers,” Corbet continued.
The veteran French actor Vincent Lindon won best actor for his performance as a father dealing with a son falling towards right-wing politics in The Quiet Son by Delphine Coulin and Muriel Coulin. Among the most admired performers of his generation, Lindon took time to thank every juror personally. This year’s jury was headed by fellow French legend Isabelle Huppert.
The very first award of the evening went to an Irish film-makers. Barry Gene Murphy, from Dublin, shared the Venice Immersive Achievement prize with May Abdalla for the interactive “mixed reality documentary” Impulse: Playing With Reality. The Venice Immersive section, dealing in virtual reality and adjacent forms, plays out on its own island just north of the Lido.
This year’s festival, taking place largely in blazing heat and muggy humidity, saw, a year after the Hollywood actors’ strike kept stars away, a more than usually flashy collection of celebrities back on the red carpet. Angelina Jolie, George Clooney, Brad Pitt and Jude Law were just a few of those joining Kidman on the walk to the Sala Grande. The event marks, incredibly, the start of an awards season that now stretches six months to the Oscars in early March. Kidman is surely now in the best actress conversation. The Brutalist and The Room Next Door seem likely to compete for best picture.
Prizes Of The 81st Venice International Film Festival
- Golden Lion: The Room Next Door by Pedro Almodóvar
- Silver Lion Grand Jury Prize: Vermiglio by Maura Delpero
- Silver Lion Best Director: The Brutalist By Brady Corbet
- Special Jury Prize: April by Dea Kulumbegashvili
- Best Screenplay: I’m Still Here by Murilo Hauser and Heitor Lorega
- Best Actress: Nicole Kidman for Babygirl
- Best Actor: Vincent Lindon for The Quiet Son
- Marcello Mastroianni Award for Best New Young Actor or Actress: Paul Kircher for And Their Children After Them
HORIZONS
- Best Film: The New Year That Never Came by Bogdan Muresanu
- Best Director: Sarah Friedland for Familiar Touch
- Special Jury Prize: One of Those Days When Hemme Dies by Murat Firatoglu
- Best Actress: Kathleen Chalfant for Familiar Touch
- Best Actor: Francesco Ghegi for Family
- Best Screenplay: Happy Holidays by Scandar Copti
- Lion of the Future – Luigi De Laurentiis Award for a Debut Film: Familiar Touch by Sarah Friedland
- Best Short Film: Who Loves The Sun by Arshia Shakiba
HORIZONS EXTRA
- Audience Award: The Witness (Shahed)
VENICE CLASSICS WINNERS
- Best Restored Film: Ecce Bombo, Nanni Moretti
- Best Documentary On Cinema: Chain Reactions
VENICE IMMERSIVE WINNERS
- Venice Immersive Achievement Award: Impulse Playing With Reality
- Venice Immersive Special Jury Prize: Oto’s Planet
- Venice Immersive Grand Prize: Ito Meikyū
