The Lowdown
A double win for one film is rare at Venice, and the jury clearly felt strongly about Woman Unknown and Mathilde Arcel. With Malkovich and Lee Chang-dong also honored, this lineup will echo through the rest of awards season.
Key Takeaways
- Woman Unknown, directed by May el-Toukhy, won the Golden Lion at the 83rd Venice Film Festival (The Guardian).
- El-Toukhy is the eighth female director to win the Golden Lion, and Mathilde Arcel won the Volpi Cup for best actress (The Guardian).
- Lee Chang-dong’s Possible Love won the grand jury prize, and the documentary NAZA took the special jury prize (The Guardian).
- John Malkovich won best actor for Martin McDonagh’s Wild Horse Nine (The Guardian).
The Story
May el-Toukhy’s Woman Unknown won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival on September 12. She is the eighth female director to take the prize, and hers was the only competition film solely directed by a woman (The Guardian).
Set just after Denmark’s liberation from Nazi occupation, the film follows a young housemaid, Marie, played by Mathilde Arcel, who fears her widowed employer and future husband will discover she had a relationship with a German soldier. Arcel also won the Volpi Cup for best actress, and jury president Maggie Gyllenhaal said that vote was unanimous (The Guardian).
Lee Chang-dong’s Possible Love won the grand jury prize. Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor’s NAZA, a Guardian-produced documentary about Israel’s military operations in Gaza, took the special jury prize, and Ilya Khrzhanovsky won the Silver Lion for best director for DAU (The Guardian).
John Malkovich won best actor for playing a veteran CIA agent in Martin McDonagh’s Wild Horse Nine and accepted by video link (The Guardian).
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