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Venice festival awards 21-film lineup top prize to Danish drama
Hindustan Times··13 Sept
The Venice Film Festival gave its Golden Lion on Saturday to May el-Toukhy's Unknown Woman, the only competition feature directed by a woman. Twenty-one films vied during ten days of screenings. Jury head Maggie Gyllenhaal opened by noting few women directors. Lee Chang-dong won the Silver Lion for Possible Love. John Malkovich took best actor for Wild Horse Nine.
Prism
What It Means For You
- Festival wins can set arthouse release dates across Europe and streaming bids for Indian audiences.
- Actors like Malkovich may see renewed awards campaigns after Venice acting honours.
- Distributors track gender parity debates when buying competition titles.
What's Happening
- El-Toukhy said the film treats the female body as a battleground while telling stories of invisible women.
- Russian director Ilya Khrzhanovsky won best director for DAU, a decades-long project with 2,000 participants.
- Organiser Alberto Barbera had promised programming reflecting a war-torn, anxious world.
Venice competition lineup
- Venice competes with Cannes and Berlin for early prestige ahead of Oscar season.
- Gender parity debates intensified as festivals publish director counts each lineup year.
- Only one other woman director, Rachel Szor, shared the competition with el-Toukhy.
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