Venice. Awards.

The wires are calling it a surprise, but the clips on the BBC last night from Jia Zhangke's Sanxia Hoaren (Still Life) and from Catherine Deneuve's announcement were indeed winning. Here's the announcement from the festival, garnished with a few notes and links.

Official Awards of the 63rd Venice Film Festival

VENEZIA 63

The Venezia 63 Jury of the 63. Mostra Internazionale d'Arte Cinematografica, chaired by Catherine Deneuve and comprised of José Juan Bigas Luna, Paulo Branco, Cameron Crowe, Chulpan Khamatova, Park Chan-wook and Michele Placido, having viewed all twenty-two films in competition, has decided as follows:

GOLDEN LION for Best Film:
Sanxia Haoren (Still Life) by Jia Zhang-Ke

As Grady Hendrix was as surprised as anyone to find out on Tuesday, this was the "secret, last-minute addition" to the Competition people had been buzzing about. He might have preferred Shelly Kraicer on this one again, but nonetheless, Screen Daily's sent Dan Fainaru: "With even less of a narrative than his previous work like The World, and more than a little too faithful to its English title, this sedentary look at a key social-economic moment in modern China plays like a documentary interspersed with fictional ingredients. As such it feels very much like a companion piece to Jia's other Lido entry this year, the documentary Dong, which screened in the Horizons section." As it happens, Dong will be screening in Toronto.

"[A]lmost zero plot but molto mood," writes Variety's Derek Elley.

Earlier: Valerie Jaffee and Kevin Lee at Senses of Cinema and Jonathan Rosenbaum on Jia Zhangke.

SILVER LION for Best Director:
Alain Resnais for the film Private Fears in Public Places.

Reviews. Toronto.

SILVER LION REVELATION:
Emanuele Crialese for the film Nuovomondo - Golden Door

"Emanuele Crialese prefers legend to realism 'because it leaves more room for the imagination,'" notes Camillo de Marco at Cineuropa. "Yet the images of the humiliating intelligence tests to which US immigration officials subject Italians, Greeks, the French and Spanish in his new film The Golden Door... have a painful historical concreteness."

"An imaginative, intelligent and attractive Italo pic precisely when the country needs it most, Emanuele Crialese's Golden Door reps a solid piece of cinema that neither panders nor preaches," adds Variety's Jay Weissberg.

SPECIAL JURY PRIZE: Daratt by Mahamat-Saleh Haroun

Reviews. Toronto.

COPPA VOLPI
for Best Male Actor:
Ben Affleck in the film Hollywoodland by Allen Coulter

Reviews.

COPPA VOLPI
for Best Female Actor:
Helen Mirren in the film The Queen by Stephen Frears

Reviews. Earlier: Graham Fuller in Film Comment.

MARCELLO MASTROIANNI AWARD
for Best Young Actor:
Isild Le Besco
in the film L'intouchable by Benoît Jacquot

"Resembling a vehicle for upcoming young French star Isild Le Besco, The Untouchable, the latest feature from veteran writer/director Benoît Jacquot, follows an actress who leaves Paris for India to locate her lower caste biological father," writes Dan Fainaru for Screen Daily. The film "aspires to tackle a wide range of issues - including the generation gap, artistic integrity, racism and discrimination - but fails to go beyond simple acknowledgment."

Variety's Deborah Young calls the film a "strong candidate for empty French art film of the year."

OSELLA
for Best Technical Contribution:
Emmanuel Lubezki
Director of Photography for the film Children of Men by Alfonso Cuarón

Reviews.

OSELLA
for Best Screenplay:
Peter Morgan
for the film The Queen by Stephen Frears

SPECIAL LION:
Jean-Marie Straub and Danièle Huillet for innovation in the language of cinema

Acquarello and Ed Halter on Jean-Marie Straub and Danièle Huillet.

Online viewing tip. Video Data Bank.

HORIZONS

The Horizons Jury of the 63. Mostra Internazionale d'Arte Cinematografica, comprised of Philip Gröning (President), Carlo Carlei, Yousri Nasrallah, Giuseppe Genna and Kusakabe Keiko, has decided to award:

HORIZONS PRIZE to:
Mabei shang de fating by Liu Jie
The Horizons Prize is supported by Groupama with a cash prize of 10,000 Euro.

HORIZONS DOC PRIZE to:
When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts by Spike Lee

Reviews, interviews, comments.

Premio Venezia Opera Prima "Luigi De Laurentiis"
The Opera Prima Jury of the 63. Mostra Internazionale d'Arte Cinematografica, comprised of Paula Wagner (President), Guillermo Del Toro, Mohsen Makhmalbaf, Andrei Plakhov, Stefania Rocca, has decided to award the:

LION OF THE FUTURE - Premio Venezia Opera Prima "Luigi De Laurentiis" to
Khadak by Peter Brosens and Jessica Woodworth
Aurelio De Laurentiis and Filmauro award a cash prize, of 100,000 USD, to the winning first film (50,000 to the director, 50,000 to the producer). To the director, an additional film voucher for 40,000 Euro will also be awarded, offered by Kodak.

Bénédicte Prot at Cineuropa: "Khadak takes us through the looking-glass, for the ethereal universe in which the shaman seems to be the only escape from this unnatural, modern world where everything and everyone has to be 'redressed.'" More from Variety's Felperin, who notes that the filmmakers' "deep regard for the Mongolian culture and folklore is manifestly evident. And yet pic has a more European than Central Asian flavor, particularly when it comes to the Philip Glass-y/Michael Nyman-ish score."

Toronto.

CORTO CORTISSIMO

The Corto Cortissimo Jury of the 63. Mostra Internazionale d'Arte Cinematografica, comprised of Teboho Mahlatsi (President), Francesca Calvelli, Aleksej Fedor?enko, has decided to award:

CORTO CORTISSIMO LION for Best Short Film to:
Comment on freine dans une descente? by Alix Delaporte

PRIX UIP for Best European Short Film to:
The Making of Parts by Daniel Elliott

SPECIAL MENTION to the film
Adults Only by Yeo Joon Han

Posted by dwhudson at September 10, 2006 4:46 AM