Sun 12 September 2021:
Renowned Spanish actress and model Penelope Cruz won best actress Saturday on the closing night of the 78th Venice Film Festival on the Lido Peninsula.
Spain’s cinema queen grabbed the award for her starring role in Parallel Mothers, a film about two mothers who give birth on the same day.
The movie was written and directed by famed Spanish director Pedro Almodovar.
Philippines star John Arcilla won best actor at the world’s oldest film festival, although his win was not expected.
He won for this performance in the crime thriller, On the Job: The Missing 8.
Audrey Diwan’s French abortion drama “L’Evenement” (“Happening”) has won the Golden Lion at the 78th Venice International Film Festival.
Diwan’s film about a French college student who finds herself with an unwanted pregnancy on a search for an abortion was the unanimous choice from the prestigious jury that included recent Oscar winners Bong Joon-ho and Chloé Zhao.
Twenty-one films were vying for the prize, which has become a promising early indicator of a film’s Oscars prospects.
“I did this movie with anger. I did the movie with desire also. I did it with my belly, my guts, my heart, my head,” Diwan said Saturday. “I wanted “Happening” to be an experience.”
The runner-up for the Silver Lion prize went to Italian director Paolo Sorrentino’s The Hand of God.
Fortune also favored New Zealand’s shining icon Jane Campion, who won the Silver Lion, the best director trophy at the festival for The Power of the Dog.
Best screenplay was given to Maggie Gyllenhaal for her directorial debut, The Lost Daughter.
The 79th Venice Film Festival will be held Aug. 31 to Sept. 10, 2022.
Some of the biggest films at the festival were not part of the competition, including Ridley Scott’s “The Last Duel,” Denis Villeneuve’s “Dune” and Edgar Wright’s “Last Night in Soho.”
The awards ceremony brings to a close the first major film festival of the fall season which thus far has appeared to be a resounding success, despite the delta variant. The COVID safety protocols were strict and the films strong.
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