May el-Toukhy’s drama took Best Film and Best Actress in Venice, while John Malkovich won Best Actor for ‘Wild Horse Nine.’
May el-Toukhy’s Woman Unknown won the Golden Lion for Best Film at the 83rd Venice International Film Festival Saturday night, and the timing could hardly have been more pointed. El-Toukhy was one of only two women with films in this year’s 21-title competition, a disparity she spoke about openly before the festival began, and one that jury president Maggie Gyllenhaal raised in remarks that went viral during the festival’s opening days.
The film didn’t just take the top prize. Mathilde Arcel also won the Volpi Cup for Best Actress for her lead performance, making Woman Unknown a rare double winner. Venice rules require a jury to reach unanimous agreement before awarding the same film both the Golden Lion and a second prize, which makes the sweep a genuine statement rather than a split decision.
A Win That Answers the Question the Festival Spent Two Weeks Asking
El-Toukhy addressed the gender gap directly from the podium. “Making films is very collaborative, which requires sacrifices, and so thank you all for helping me tell the story,” she said. “For me personally, Woman Unknown talks about the woman’s body as a battlefield. At the same time, the film tells the story of invisible women who are not and who do not have a voice.” She then turned to Gyllenhaal directly: “Thank you especially to you, Maggie, because you use your voice about the lack of equal opportunities for the directors in the competition.”
Gyllenhaal had put it plainly at the jury’s opening press conference. “There’s a systemic problem,” she said. “It’s much harder for women to get their films financed. Also, could it be possible that the things that women, having had a different experience of being alive in the world, want to make movies about are not always deemed high art?”
El-Toukhy, a Danish-Egyptian filmmaker previously best known for 2019’s Queen of Hearts, told us before the festival what the film had cost her personally. “I’ve worked 16 hours a day for more than a year. I’ve spent all my savings. I’ve used every part of me to make this film and all the resources, all the muscle power I have.” She added then that simply making the competition felt like winning. She was wrong about that, as it turns out.
Woman Unknown follows a young nanny (Arcel) preparing to marry into a wealthy Copenhagen family in the aftermath of World War II, as her secret wartime relationship with a German soldier threatens to surface. Under recent Academy rule changes, the Golden Lion win automatically qualifies the film for Best International Feature consideration at the Oscars.
Arcel, accepting her own award, was visibly emotional. “This is my first lead role and it’s the first time I’ve participated in a film festival, and so I’m really extremely honored,” she said. “I am truly fortunate to be in Venice with you, people who are really the best filmmakers, actors and actresses in the world, whom I’ve watched all my life.”
Malkovich Installs Himself as the Oscar Frontrunner
John Malkovich won the Volpi Cup for Best Actor for Wild Horse Nine, Martin McDonagh’s pitch-black buddy comedy about two aging CIA operatives, and the win has immediately reframed the Best Actor race. Several outlets now place the 72-year-old as the current favorite heading into the fall.
Malkovich couldn’t attend, filming another project in Montreal, and accepted by video. “I am really glad to have been chosen for this award which has been given to many actors,” he said. “Thanks to Martin McDonagh for having written an incredible screenplay and for his exceptional direction and for having given me, in fact, the opportunity to play this fantastic role. Thanks to all my colleagues, especially Sam Rockwell. I’m sorry, unfortunately, I can’t be there with you. I would have loved to be there, but I am currently filming another film.”
Notably, McDonagh himself went home empty-handed. The Silver Lion for Best Director instead went to Ilya Khrzhanovsky for DAU, the long-gestating epic he built by sealing off a constructed world in Ukraine, populating it with thousands of participants and filming them for three years. Two decades, 14 films and considerable controversy later, the project finally reached Venice.
Lee Chang-dong Takes the Grand Jury Prize
Lee Chang-dong’s Possible Love won the Silver Lion Grand Jury Prize, capping a return that had already generated one of the festival’s most emotional premieres.
The film, following a struggling working-class family and the affluent documentarian who chooses them as her subject, drew some of the strongest reviews of the festival, with critics repeatedly singling out its ensemble of Jeon Do-yeon, Sul Kyung-gu, Zo In-sung and Cho Yeo-jeong. It also won the FIPRESCI prize from international film critics.
“Without the patience and faith of so many people, this film would not have been possible,” Lee said accepting the award. Netflix releases the film globally in November, and it’s already South Korea’s official Oscar submission for Best International Feature.
NAZA Wins the Special Jury Prize
NAZA, a documentary from Israeli directors Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, won the Special Jury Prize following a 25-minute standing ovation at its premiere, believed to be a festival record. Abraham previously co-directed the Oscar-winning No Other Land.
The film features testimony from 24 Israeli military officers describing systems and protocols they allege Israel uses in targeting civilians in Gaza, and takes its title from an acronym the Israeli military uses as shorthand for civilian casualties.
Abraham used the acceptance speech to address the reaction the film has already drawn. “It’s honestly not very easy to stand here,” he said. “I’m thinking of all the people, the Israeli politicians, the journalists back home, who are now attacking this film, denying it, without even seeing it.”
He went on to describe specific casualties he said occurred during the festival’s run, and to argue that the officers interviewed characterized the killings as systemic. “We believe that the denial of a crime is what helps it persist, and that’s why it’s important for us that the Israelis see this film,” he said.
He also credited Palestinian journalists as the original documentarians of the conflict, noting that more than 200 have been killed in Gaza.
The Films That Went Home Empty
Several of the festival’s most-discussed titles left without prizes. Lance Oppenheim’s Primetime, which earned a lengthy ovation for Robert Pattinson’s turn as Chris Hansen, took nothing. Neither did Danny Boyle’s Ink, which opened the festival, nor Werner Herzog’s Bucking Fastard, nor Florian Zeller’s Bunker.
Elsewhere, A Good Little Soldier from Stéphane Brizé, Coralie Amédéo and Olivier Gorce won Best Screenplay, and Malou Khebizi took the Marcello Mastroianni Award for Best Young Actor for 15/18 (A Place to Heal).
In the Horizons section, the big winner was Ann Sirot and Raphaël Balboni’s Diane in the Loop, a Belgian feature about a woman who sets out to avenge her mother. Riccardo Scamarcio won Horizons Best Actor for Children of the Monkey, Laleh Marzban won Best Actress for the Iranian drama Falling House, and Jacqueline Lentzou took Best Director for A Day in the Life of Jo: Chapter Phaedra, inspired by the 2008 police killing of a teenager in Athens.
FULL WINNERS LIST
Competition
Golden Lion for Best Film: Woman Unknown, May el-Toukhy
Silver Lion, Grand Jury Prize: Possible Love, Lee Chang-dong
Silver Lion for Best Director: Ilya Khrzhanovsky, DAU
Special Jury Prize: NAZA, Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor
Best Screenplay: A Good Little Soldier, Stéphane Brizé, Coralie Amédéo and Olivier Gorce
Volpi Cup for Best Actor: John Malkovich, Wild Horse Nine
Volpi Cup for Best Actress: Mathilde Arcel, Woman Unknown
Marcello Mastroianni Award for Best Young Actor: Malou Khebizi, 15/18 (A Place to Heal)
Luigi De Laurentiis Award for Debut Film: House of the Wind, Auguste Bernard Kouemo Yanghu
Armani Beauty Audience Award: I Matter, Alina Șerban
Horizons
Best Film: Diane in the Loop, Ann Sirot and Raphaël Balboni
Best Director: Jacqueline Lentzou, A Day in the Life of Jo: Chapter Phaedra
Special Jury Prize: House of the Wind, Auguste Bernard Kouemo Yanghu
Best Actor: Riccardo Scamarcio, Children of the Monkey
Best Actress: Laleh Marzban, Falling House
Best Screenplay: Children of the Monkey, Tommaso Landucci and Damiano Femfert
Best Short Film: A Few Moments of Happiness, Shaden Safieddine Tazi
Venice Classics
Best Restored Film: Long Night of 1943, Florestano Vancini
Venice Immersive
Grand Prize: The Pigeon Ring, Shixin Tao and Yuqi Zhang
Special Jury Prize: Out of the Ashes, Rory Mitchell and Nonny de la Peña
Achievement Prize: Empire at Sea, Peter Flaherty
Golden Lions for Lifetime Achievement
George Clooney and Ellen Burstyn, both previously announced
