2022 Venice Film Festival Awards: Doc ‘All the Beauty and the Bloodshed’ named Best Film, ‘Bones and All,’ Saint Omer,’ Banshees of Inisherin’ snag dual wins

Erik Anderson September 10, 2022

The awards for the 79th Venice Film Festival were handed out tonight and the theme of the night was doubling up.

While Laura Poitras’ riveting documentary All the Beauty and the Bloodshed, about the infamous Sackler family, earned the Golden Lion for Best Film (the first documentary since 2013’s Sacro GRA), three films in competition won two awards apiece. Alice Diop’s gripping infanticide drama Saint Omer won the Grand Jury Prize as well as the Luigi de Laurentiis Award for Best Debut Feature. The Banshees of Inisherin took home Best Actor for Colin Farrell and Best Screenplay for director Martin McDonagh and Luca Guadagnino’s Bones and All won the Silver Lion for Best Director and the Marcello Mastroianni Award Best Young Actor prize went to Taylor Russell. Cate Blanchett’s tour-de-force turn in Tár earned her the Best Actress prize, her second win here after her take on Bob Dylan in Todd Haynes’ I’m Not There (2007). The Special Jury Prize for competition films went to No Bears from Jafar Panahi. Panahi is currently in an Iranian jail. In July of this year, he was sentenced to six years’ imprisonment by the Iranian judiciary, who are seeking to enforce a previously handed-down sentence. Panahi was detained on July 11 at the prosecutors’ office, which he visited along with lawyers and colleagues to ask after the wellbeing and whereabouts of fellow Iranian film-makers Mohammad Rasoulof and Mostafa Aleahmad, who had been detained three days before. Jury president Julianne Moore and director and jury member Audrey Diwan joined others earlier this week to protest Panahi’s incarceration. Actress Mina Kavani accepting the award on behalf of the director, saying, “All of us are standing up for the power of cinema, are standing here for Jafar Panahi.”

In Venice’s Horizons (Orizzonti) sidebar, the prize for Best Film went to the Iranian drama World War III from director Houman Seyyedi. Mohsen Tanabandeh took the Best Actor honor for his performance in the film, in which he plays a traumatized man who gets cast to play Adolf Hitler in a WWII movie. Tanabandeh dedicated the prize half to his wife and half to “workers in Iran” who he said had to suffer as his character does in the film. Seyyedi also dedicated his trophy “to the people of my country, Iran.”

A surprised and emotional Vera Gemma won the Best Actress honor in the Horizons section for her performance in Vera from directors Tizza Covi and Rainer Frimmel, who also picked up the Best Director honor. The Special Jury Prize went to Bread and Salt from director Damian Kocur. The award for Best Screenplay in the Horizons section went to Fernando Guzzoni’s script for his Chilean foster home drama Blanquita.

Venice and Academy Award winner Julianne Moore presided as president of the main jury which included French director Audrey Diwan, winner of last year’s Venice Golden Lion for the abortion drama Happening; Leila Hatami, star of Asghar Farhadi’s A Separation; British author and screenwriter Kazuo Ishiguro (Never Let Me Go); Italian director Leonardo di Costanzo, in Venice last year with prison drama The Inner Cage; Argentina’s Mariano Cohn, also in Venice last year with comedy Official Competition; and Spanish director and producer Rodrigo Sorogoyen.

Here is the full list of winners:

COMPETITION
Golden Lion for Best Film: All the Beauty and the Bloodshed by Laura Poitras
Grand Jury Prize: Saint Omer by Alice Diop
Silver Lion for Best Director: Luca Guadagnino for Bones and All
Special Jury Prize: No Bears by Jafar Panahi
Best Screenplay: Martin McDonagh for The Banshees of Inisherin
Volpi Cup for Best Actress: Cate Blanchett for Tár
Volpi Cup for Best Actor: Colin Farrell for The Banshees of Inisherin
Marcello Mastroianni Award for Best Young Actor: Taylor Russell for Bones and All

HORIZONS (ORIZZONTI)

Best Film: World War III by Houman Seyyedi

Best Director: Tizza Covi and Rainer Frimmel for Vera
Best Actor: Mohsen Tanabandeh for World War III

Best Actress: Vera Gemma for Vera
Best Screenplay: Blanquita by Fernando Guzzoni
Best Short Film: Snow in September by Lkhagvadulam Purev-Ochir

LION OF THE FUTURE
Luigi de Laurentiis Award for Best Debut Feature: Saint Omer by Alice Diop

HORIZONS EXTRA
Audience Award: Nezouh by Soudade Kaadan

VENICE CLASSICS
Best Documentary of Cinema: Fragments of Paradise by K.D. Davison
Best Restored Film: Branded to Kill by Seijun Suzuki

VENICE DAYS
Cinema of the Future Award: The Maiden by Graham Foy
Director’s Award: Wolf and Dog by Cláudia Varejão
People’s Choice Award: Blue Jean by Georgia Oakley

CRITICS’ WEEK
Grand Prize: Eismayer by David Wagner
Special Mention: Anhell69 by Theo Montoya
Audience Award: Margini by Niccolò Falsetti
Verona Film Club Award: Anhell69 by Theo Montoya
Mario Serandrei – Hotel Saturnia Award for Best Technical Contribution: Anhell69 by Theo Montoya
Best Short Film: Puiet by Lorenzo Fabbro, Bronte Stahl
Best Director (Short Film): Albertine Where Are You? by Maria Guidone
Best Technical Contribution (Short Film): Reginetta by Federico Russotto

VENICE IMMERSIVE
Best Immersive Experience: The Man Who Couldn’t Leave, Chen Singing
Grand Jury Prize: From the Main Square, Pedro Harres
Special Jury Prize: Eggscape, German Heller

FIPRESCI: Argentina, 1985 by Santiago Mitre

Queer Lion: Aus Meiner Haut (Skin Deep) by Alex Shaad

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Erik Anderson

Erik Anderson is the founder/owner and Editor-in-Chief of AwardsWatch and has always loved all things Oscar, having watched the Academy Awards since he was in single digits; making lists, rankings and predictions throughout the show. This led him down the path to obsessing about awards. Much later, he found himself in film school and the film forums of GoldDerby, and then migrated over to the former Oscarwatch (now AwardsDaily), before breaking off to create AwardsWatch in 2013.

He is a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic, accredited by the Cannes Film Festival, Telluride Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival and more, is a member of the International Cinephile Society (ICS), The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics (GALECA), Hollywood Critics Association (HCA) and the International Press Academy. Among his many achieved goals with AwardsWatch, he has given a platform to underrepresented writers and critics and supplied them with access to film festivals and the industry and calls the Bay Area his home where he lives with his husband and son.