73rd Venice Film Festival WINNERS: La La Land, Lav Diaz take top honors

Erik Anderson September 10, 2016

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Filipino director Lav Diaz took home the top prize from the 73rd Venice Film Festival with his newest (and one of his shortest) film, The Woman Who Left. Diaz had won once and been nominated another time in the Horizons section; this is his first win here.

Recent winners of the the festival’s top award, The Golden Lion, have included From Afar (Venezuela’s Foreign Language Film Oscar submission for this year) and A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence from Sweden. The most recent American film to capture the prize was Sofia Coppola’s Somewhere in 2010.

The Silver Lion, the directing prize, was shared between Andrei Konchalovsky for Paradise and Amat Escalante for The Untamed (La region salvaje).

The Orizzonti section proved to be great for women, they won the top two awards; Best Film, Liberami from Federica DiGiacamo and Best Director, Fien Troch for Home.

Emma Stone (La La Land) won the Volpi Cup for Best Actress and becomes the first American actress to take the prize since Julianne Moore in 2002 for Far From Heaven. Óscar Martínez took home the Volpi Cup for Best Actor for The Distinguished Citizen and Pablo Larraín’s Jackie nabbed the prize for Best Screenplay for Noah Oppenheim.

Unlike some festival awards, Venice only allows one win per film.

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THE WINNERS

Official selection: In Competition

Golden Lion (Best Film) – The Woman Who Left, Lav Diaz

Silver Lion (Best Director) – A TIE: Andrei Konchalovsky for Paradise and Amat Escalante for The Untamed (La region salvaje)

Grand Jury Prize – Nocturnal Animals, Tom Ford

Volpi Cup (Best Actor/Actress)
Actor – Óscar Martínez, The Distinguished Citizen
Actress – Emma Stone, La La Land

Marcello Mastroianni Prize (Best New Actor or Actress) – Paula Beer, Frantz

Special Jury Prize – The Bad Batch, Ana Lily Amirpour

Golden Osella (Best Technical Contribution [cinematographers, composers, etc.] and for the Best Screenplay) – Noah Oppenheim, Jackie

Venice: Lion of the Future Award – Ala Eddine Slim (The Last of Us)

Venice Classics

Best Documentary – Les concurs (The Graduation), Claire Simon

Best Restored Film – Break-Up (L’uomo dei cinque palloni), Marco Ferreri

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Orizzonti section (Horizons)
This section is open to all “custom-format” works, with a wider view towards new trends in the expressive languages that converge in film. The awards of the Orizzonti section are:

The Orizzonti Prize
The Orizzonti Prize for Best Film – Liberami, Federica Di Giacamo
The Special Orizzonti Jury Prize (for feature-length films) – Big, Big World; Reha Erdem
The Orizzonti Prize for Best Director – Fien Troch, Home
The Orizzonti Short Film Prize – La Voz Perdida, Marco Martinessi
The Orizzonti Medium-length Film Prize – Qu Klan (Bitter Money), Wang Bing
The Orizzonti Prize for Best Actor – Nuno Lopes, São Jorge
The Orizzonti Prize for Best Actress – Ruth Diaz, The Fury of the Patient Man

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Main Competition Jury
Sam Mendes: English film and stage director (President of Jury)
Laurie Anderson: American artist, composer, musician and film director
Gemma Arterton: English actress
Giancarlo De Cataldo: Italian writer
Nina Hoss: German actress
Chiara Mastroianni: French-Italian actress
Joshua Oppenheimer: American fim director
Lorenzo Vigas: Venezuelan film director, screenwriter and producer
Zhao Wei: Chinese actress, singer and film director

As a reminder, here was the lineup of this year’s festival that were eligible for awards:

IN COMPETITION

“The Bad Batch,” Ana Lily Amirpour (U.S.)
“Une Vie,” Stephan Brizé (France, Belgium)
“La La Land,” Damien Chazelle (U.S.)
“The Light Between Oceans,” Derek Cianfrance (U.S., Australia, New Zealand)
“El ciudadano ilustre,” Mariano Cohn, Gaston Duprat (Argentina, Spain)
“Spira Mirabilis,” Massimo D’Anolfi, Martina Parenti (Italy, Switzerland)
“The Woman Who Left,” Lav Diaz (Philippines)
“La region salvaje,” Amat Escalante (Mexico)
“Nocturnal Animals,” Tom Ford (U.S.)
“Piuma,” Roan Johnson (Italy)
“Paradise,” Andrei Konchalovsky (Russia, Germany)
“Brimstone,” Martin Koolhoven (Netherlands, Germany, Belgium, France, U.K. Sweden)
“On the Milky Road,” Emir Kusturica (Serbia, U.K., U.S.)
“Jackie,” Pablo Larrain (U.S., Chile)
“Voyage of Time,” Terrence Malick (U.S., Germany)
“El Cristo ciego,” Christopher Murray (Chile, France)
“Frantz,” Francois Ozon (France)
“Questi Giorni,” Giuseppe Piccioni (Italy)
“Arrival,” Denis Villenueve (U.S.)
“The Beautiful Days of Aranjuez,” Wim Wenders (France, Germany)

HORIZONS
“Tarde para la ira,” Raul Arevalo (Spain)
“King of the Belgians,” Peter Brosens, Jessica Woolworth (Belgium, Netherlands, Bulgaria)
“Through the Wall,” Rama Burshtein (Israel)
“Liberami,” Federica Di Giacomo (Italy, France)
“Big Big World,” Reha Erdem (Turkey)
“Gukuroku,” Ishikawa Kei (Japan)
“Maudit Poutine,” Karl Lemieux, (Canada)
“Sao Jorge,” Marco Martins (Portugal, France)
“Dawson City: Frozen Time,” Bill Morrison (U.S., France)
“Reparer les vivants,” Katell Quillevere (France, Belgium)
“White Sun,” Deepak Rauniyar (Nepal, U.S., Qatar, Netherlands)
“Malaria,” Parviz Shahbazi (Iran)
“Kekszakallu,” Gaston Solnicky (Argentina)
“Home,” Fien Troch (Belgium)
“Die Einsiedler,” Fien Troch (Germany, Austria)
“Il più grande sogno,” (Italy)
“Boys in the Trees,” Nicholas Verso (Australia)
“Bitter Money,” Wang Bing (China)

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Jaeger-LeCoultre Partnership
Jaeger-LeCoultre Glory to the Filmmaker Award, organized in collaboration with Jaeger-LeCoultre since 2006. It is dedicated to personalities who have made a significant contribution to contemporary cinema.
2016 winner – Amir Naderi (Iran)

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The Venice Film Festival or Venice International Film Festival (Italian: Mostra Internazionale d’Arte Cinematografica della Biennale di Venezia, “International Exhibition of Cinematographic Art of the Venice Biennale”), founded in 1932, is the oldest film festival in the world and one of the “Big Three” film festivals alongside the Cannes Film Festival and Berlin International Film Festival.

The film festival is part of the Venice Biennale, which was founded by the Venetian City Council in 1895. Today, the Biennale includes a range of separate events including: the International Art Exhibition; the International Festival of Contemporary Music; the International Theatre Festival; the International Architecture Exhibition; the International Festival of Contemporary Dance; the International Kids’ Carnival; and the annual Venice Film Festival, which is arguably the best-known of all the events.

The film festival has since taken place in late August or early September on the island of the Lido, Venice, Italy. Screenings take place in the historic Palazzo del Cinema on the Lungomare Marconi and in other venues nearby. Since its inception, the festival has become the most prestigious international film festival in the world.

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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.