This was announced by the jury on Saturday evening. Irish actor Colin Farrell won Best Actor at the Film Festival. The 46-year-old plays the Irishman Pádraic in the black comedy “The Banshees of Inisherin” (director: Martin McDonagh), whose best friend to date, Colm, suddenly and without reason decides to end their friendship. Completely irritated, Pádraic tries to rekindle the friendship and does not accept his former friend’s no. He then takes drastic measures.
Imprisoned Iranian director Jafar Panahi won the Special Jury Prize for his film “No Bears”. Panahi was arrested in Iran in July. The award-winning filmmaker (“Taxi Tehran”) had made several films in the past despite a ban on working in Iran and a ban on leaving the country.
In “No Bears” the 62-year-old Panahi plays himself. In the film he has recently been staying in a small Iranian village near the border; he is not allowed to leave his country because of an exit ban. From afar, he and a team in Turkey shoot a film via video link about a couple who want to leave Iran. In addition to this story, which continues to be told, it is also about what is happening in the village of which Panahi has recently become a resident. In 2012, Panahi shared the European Parliament’s Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought with Iranian human rights activist Nasrin Sotoudeh.
There was already a prize for an Austrian film on Friday evening: “Eismayer”, the feature film debut by David Wagner, received the prize for the best feature film in the Settimana Internazionale della critica.
The most important awards at a glance:
- Golden Lion for Best Picture: “All the Beauty and the Bloodshed” by Laura Poitras
- Grand Jury Prize: Alice Diop for “Saint Omer”
- -Silver Lion for Best Director: Luca Guadagnino for “Bones and All”
- Special Jury Prize: “No Bears” by Jafar Panahi
- Best Screenplay Award: Martin McDonagh for The Banshees of Inisherin
- Best Actress Award: Cate Blanchett for “Tár” by Todd Field
- Best Actor Award: Colin Farrell for Martin McDonagh’s The Banshees of Inisherin
- Marcello Mastroianni Award for Best Young Actor: Taylor Russell in “Bones and All” by Luca Guadagnino
Two prizes for Austro film “Vera”
The Austrian film “Vera” by the Vienna-based directing duo Tizza Covi and Rainer Frimmel has received two awards in Venice in the Orizzonti sidebar. The film received the award for best director. The Roman Vera Gemma, who plays herself in the film, was also honored as best actress.
In their usual semi-documentary project “Vera”, the South Tyrolean Covi and the Viennese Frimmel portray the unsuccessful actress Vera Gemma, daughter of screen legend Giuliano Gemma, who is still overshadowed by her famous dead father.
In the film, Covi and Frimmel deal with how one lives when one is only seen as the daughter of a famous man and is always compared to one’s father, and how one finds one’s place in this society. The film was shot in Italian in the fall of 2021 in Rome’s Trastevere and San Basilio neighborhoods. The cast is also made up of Italians.
Source: Nachrichten
