Women rule 2021 Venice Film Festival Awards as French abortion drama ‘Happening’ wins Golden Lion; Penélope Cruz, Maggie Gyllenhaal and Jane Campion take top prizes

Erik Anderson September 11, 2021

The French abortion drama Happening from Audrey Diwan has won the Golden Lion at the 78th Venice Film Festival. Diwan is only the 6th woman to win the festival’s top prize after Margarethe von Trotta, Agnès Varda, Mira Nair, Sofia Coppola, and Chloé Zhao. It marks the first time in Venice history that women have won the Golden Lion in back to back years.

Veteran director Jane Campion won the Best Director prize for her meditative cowboy drama The Power of the Dog with Benedict Cumberbatch and Kirsten Dunst. Campion is only the second woman ever to win the Silver Lion for directing. The first was Shirin Neshat for 2009’s Women Without Men.

Maggie Gyllenhaal, who won the Best Screenplay award for her adaptation of The Lost Daughter (which she also directed) spoke of ‘secret truths’ of women, through tears recalls seeing The Piano in high school, with director Jane Campion present in the Venice audience. Both films are backed by Netflix.

Netflix kept winning with two more awards, both for Paolo Sorrentino’s The Hand of God. Sorrentino won the Silver Lion Grand Jury Prize for the film and Filippo Scotti won the Marcello Mastroianni Award for Best Young Actor.

Here is the complete list of winners of the 78th Venice Film Festival.

Golden Lion for Best Film – Happening by Audrey Diwan

Silver Lion Grand Jury Prize – The Hand of God by Paolo Sorrentino

Silver Lion for Best Director – Jane Campion for The Power of the Dog

Volpi Cup for Best Actress – Penélope Cruz for Parallel Mothers

Volpi Cup for Best Actor – John Arcilla for On the Job: The Missing 8

Best Screenplay – Maggie Gyllenhaal for The Lost Daughter

Special Jury Prize – Il Buco (The Hole)

Marcello Mastroianni Award for Best Young Actor – Filippo Scotti for The Hand of God

ORIZZONTI AWARDS

Best Film – Pilgrims by Laurynas Bareisa

Best Director – Full Time by Eric Gravel

Special Jury Prize – El Gran Movimiento by Kiro Russo

Best Actress – Full Time by Laure Calamy

Best Actor – White Building by Piseth Chhun

Best Screenplay – 107 Mothers by Ivan Ostrochovský and Peter Kerekes

Best Short Film – Los Huesos by Cristóbal León and Joaquín Cociña

LUIGI DE LAURENTIIS AWARD

Best First Feature – Imaculat by Monica Stan and George Chiper-Lillemark

VENICE VR EXPANDED AWARDS

Grand Jury Prize for Best VR Work – Goliath: Playing With Reality by Barry Gene Murphy, May Abdalla

Best VR Experience – Le Bal de Paris de Blanca Li by Blanca Li

Best VR Story – End of Night by David Adler

ORIZZONTI EXTRA

Armani Beauty Audience Award – The Blind Man Who Did Not Want to See Titanic by Teemu Nikki

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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.