Venice 2022: after The Event, the Golden Lion for another director, Colin Farrell and Cate Blanchett rewarded – Actus Ciné

After Chloé Zhao (Nomadland) and Audrey Diwan (L’Événement), it is another director who triumphs at the Venice Film Festival. But in another register. The American filmmaker Laura Poitras (to whom we owe in particular the Oscar-winning Citizenfour on Edward Snowden) has indeed won the Golden Lion of the 79th edition thanks to her new documentary: All the Beauty and the Bloodshed, which returns to artist-photographer Nan Goldin’s activism on the opiate drug scandal in the United States, and echoes her Dopesick series.

An American Golden Lion for a list of awards with a strong Anglo-Saxon tendency: fifteen years after her triumph for I’m Not There, the Australian Cate Blanchett received the Prize for Best Actress for the biopic Tár by Todd Field (released February 22, 2023), on the German conductor of the same name.

And the Irishman Colin Farrell imposed himself in the men’s category for his performance in The Banshees of Inisherin (in theaters December 28), directed by the Briton Martin McDonagh, who had already directed him in Good kisses from Bruges and 7 Psychopaths. And to whom the festival succeeds well, then the jury led by Julianne Moore offered him his second Screenplay Prize, five years after that of 3 Billboards.

Another double made on the Lido: that of the Italian-American film Bones and All, a cannibal love story rewarded thanks to its director Luca Guadagnino and its actress Taylor Russell, who received the Marcello Mastroianni Prize for Best Hope.

And the French in all this? Present en masse thanks to a delegation led by Rebecca Zlotowski or Roschdy Zem, they placed themselves twice on the list thanks to Alice Diop alone. César for the Best Documentary Short Film in 2017, for Vers la tendresse, the director did not miss her passage to the long.

Very well received by the press, Saint Omer earned him the Lion of the Future for Best First Film, and the Grand Jury Prize. Distributed by Les Films du Losange, this drama about a young novelist who attends the trial of a woman accused of having caused the death of her child does not yet have a release date. But that should be unlocked shortly, in order to make it the candidate for the next César (and for the Oscar for Best Foreign Film?) that it already has everything to be. And its director distinguished herself with a powerful speech.

Finally, note the gesture of the jury towards the Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi, arrested last July and who must serve a six-year prison sentence: his latest opus to date, No Bear, has indeed received a Special Prize, highly symbolic .

The complete winners of the Venice Competition 2022

• Golden Lion : All the beauty and bloodshed of Laura Poitras
• Silver Lion – Grand Jury Prize: Saint Omer by Alice Diop
• Silver Lion – Best Achievement: Luca Guadagnino for Bones and All
• Volpi Cup for Best Actress: Cate Blanchett for Warehouse
• Volpi Cup for Best Actor: Colin Farrell for The Banshees of Inisherin
• Best Screenplay Award: Martin McDonagh for The Banshees of Inisherin
• Marcello Mastroianni Award for Best Newcomer: Taylor Russell for Bones and All
• Special Jury Prize: No Bear by Jafar Panahi
• Lion of the Future for Best First Film: Saint Omer by Alice Diop