The 82nd Venice Film Festival is coming to a detailed with an awards ceremony on Saturday (September 6, 2025) that has repeatedly turned to the struggle in Gaza. The prizes embrace nods for performing, directing and greatest image, known as the Golden Lion.
The Alexander Payne-led jury named Chinese actor Xin Zhilei greatest actress for main Cai Shangjun’s “The Sun Rises on Us All,” a narrative a couple of love triangle set on this planet of sweatshops in Guangzhou. Italian actor Toni Servillo received greatest actor for taking part in a president on the finish of his time period in Paolo Sorrentino’s “La Grazia.”
They additionally singled out Swiss actor Luna Wedler with the Marcello Mastroianni Award, which matches to a younger actor, for her flip within the movie “Silent Friend,” a poetic three-part story a couple of ginkgo tree in a medieval college city in Germany.
Several administrators and actors had been on the pink carpet earlier than the present, including “The Smashing Machine” director Benny Safdie, “Father Mother Sister Brother” filmmaker Jim Jarmusch, and the ensemble behind “The Voice of Hind Rajab.”
Winners for the horizons sidebar, a discovery part led by French filmmaker Julia Ducournau, had been introduced first. “En El Camino,” concerning the world of long-haul trucking in Mexico from filmmaker David Pablos, received greatest movie. Anuparna Roy was emotional accepting the very best director prize for her debut function, “Songs of Forgotton Trees,” about two migrant girls in Mumbai.
Ms. Roy, who’s Indian, devoted a part of her remarks to the battle in Gaza. “Every child deserves peace, freedom, liberation, and Palestine is no exception,” Ms. Roy stated. “I stand beside Palestine. I might upset my country but it doesn’t matter to me anymore.”
Armani Beauty’s viewers award successful filmmaker Maryam Touzani (“Calle Málaga”) additionally used her remarks to highlight Gaza. “How many mothers have been made childless,” she stated. “How many more until this horror is brought to an end? We refuse to lose our humanity.”
“Aftersun” filmmaker Charlotte Wells handed out the debut movie prize to Nastia Korkia for “Short Summer,” who spoke concerning the ongoing struggle in Ukraine. Her movie is a loosely autobiographical account of a kid residing along with her grandparents through the Chechen struggle.
“I very much hope that we will keep our eyes wide open and that we will find the strength to stop the war,” Ms. Korkia stated.
The ceremony additionally included a tribute to the late Giorgio Armani, who died on Thursday (September 4, 2025), with a standing ovation from the viewers. Armani Beauty is a longtime sponsor of the competition.
“Thank you, Giorgio Armani, for teaching us that creativity lives in the spaces where disciplines meet – fashion, cinema, art, new materials, architecture – just as happens every day here at the Venice Biennale,” Italian architect Carlo Ratti stated.
This yr’s most important competitors lineup included many potential Oscar heavyweights. Kathryn Bigelow set off a warning shot about nuclear weapons and the equipment of decision-making along with her pressing, and distressingly life like, thriller “A House of Dynamite.”
Guillermo del Toro unveiled his “Frankenstein,” a sumptuously gothic interpretation of the Mary Shelley traditional, with Oscar Isaac portraying Victor Frankenstein as a romantic madman and Jacob Elodri, naive and uncooked, because the monster.
Park Chan-wook delighted along with his darkly comedic “No Other Choice,” a satire concerning the desperation of white-collar employees competing for jobs.
Dwayne Johnson took a critical flip as a fighter grappling with habit to painkillers and winner within the MMA/UFC sports activities drama “The Smashing Machine,” whereas Emma Stone and Jesse Plemons are unusual and fierce as kidnapped and kidnapper in Yorgos Lanthimos’s provocative “Bugonia.”
George Clooney and Adam Sandler moved audiences as an ageing film star and his devoted supervisor on a soul-searching journey by means of Europe in “Jay Kelly,” a ruthlessly truthful love letter to Hollywood, in all its ridiculousness and magnificence.
Jude Law furrowed his brows as Vladimir Putin in “The Wizard of the Kremlin” and Amanda Seyfried put a human, feminist, face to the spiritual sect the shakers in “The Testament of Ann Lee.”
Julia Roberts additionally flexed her performing muscle mass as a Yale philosophy professor within the midst of a misconduct accusation in opposition to a colleague in “After the Hunt,” however neither she nor her castmates Andrew Garfield, Ayo Edebiri and director, Luca Guadagnino, are eligible for Venice prizes. The movie debuted out of competitors.
Far from Hollywood, Tunisian filmmaker Kaouther Ben Hania, had a late-festival smash with “The Voice of Hind Rajab,” concerning the 6-year-old lady killed in Gaza, which reportedly bought a 22-minute standing ovation. The movie is a shattering doc of the Israel-Hamas struggle, set completely contained in the dispatch heart of the Palestine Red Crescent Society rescue service. It makes use of the true audio of Hind’s name, whereas actors painting the primary responders.
“Nebraska” filmmaker Alexander Payne presided over the principle competitors jury, which included Brazilian actor Fernanda Torres, Iranian director Mohammad Rasoulof, French director Stéphane Brizé, Italian director Maura Delpero, Chinese actor Zhao Tao and Romanian director Cristian Mungiu.
Both Mr. Lanthimos and Mr. del Toro have received the Golden Lion earlier than, for “Poor Things” and “The Shape of Water,” respectively. Those movies additionally went on to win high Oscars, including greatest actress for Stone in “Poor Things,” and greatest image and director for del Toro’s “The Shape of Water.”
Since 2014, the Venice Film Festival has hosted 4 greatest image winners, including “The Shape of Water,” “Birdman,” “Spotlight” and “Nomadland.” Last yr, they’d a number of eventual Oscar-winning movies within the lineup, including Brady Corbet’s “The Brutalist,” which received three including greatest actor for Adrien Brody, Walter Salles’ greatest worldwide function winner “I’m Still Here,” and the animated brief “In the Shadow of the Cypress.”
The earlier Golden Lion winner, Pedro Almodóvar’s English-language debut “The Room Next Door,” a smash at Venice with an 18-minute standing ovation, acquired no Oscar nominations.
