AWARDS

Venice 2022 Golden Lion: 'All the Beauty & the Bloodshed' Doc Wins

by Alex Billington
September 11, 2022
Source: Biennale

It's not often a documentary is good enough to break through and win the top prize at a film festival - but it happens every once in a while. Fahrenheit 9/11 won the Palme d'Or in Cannes before, and another activism doc has won in Venice this year. The 79th Venice Film Festival wrapped up this weekend on the sunny Lido island in Venice, and awards were handed out at a fancy awards show in the Sala Grande. The top prize at Venice is a Golden Lion (in honor of the iconic lion that is the symbol of the city) and it's one of the top prizes in cinema along with the Palme d'Or. This year's winner is a documentary film titled All the Beauty and the Bloodshed directed by Oscar-winning filmmaker Laura Poitras (Citizenfour). The film is about photographer Nan Goldin, telling her own life story and connecting it to her activism in the fight against the opioid crisis in America. It's not my favorite of the festival, and not my Golden Lion pick (that would be TÁR instead), but many critics have been raving about it. The full list of #Venezia79 winners can be seen below.

Main Venice Awards

The Venezia Jury, chaired by Julianne Moore, with Mariano Cohn, Leonardo Di Costanzo, Audrey Diwan, Leila Hatami, Kazuo Ishiguro, Rodrigo Sorogoyen, having viewed all 23 films in the competition, awards:

Golden Lion for Best Film:
All the Beauty and the Bloodshed by Laura Poitras

Silver Lion Grand Jury Prize:
Saint Omer by Alice Diop

Silver Lion Award for Best Director:
Luca Guadagnino for the film Bones and All

Coppa Volpi for Best Actress:
Cate Blanchett in the film TÁR by Todd Field

Coppa Volpi for Best Actor:
Colin Farrell in the film The Banshees of Inisherin by Martin McDonagh

Award for Best Screenplay:
Martin McDonagh for The Banshees of Inisherin also directed by McDonagh

Special Jury Prize:
No Bears (Khers Nist) by Jafar Panahi

Marcello Mastroianni Award for Best Young Actor or Actress:
Taylor Russell in the film Bones and All by Luca Guadagnino

"Luigi De Laurentiis" Venice Award for a Debut Film:
Saint Omer by Alice Diop

Orizzonti Section Awards

The Orizzonti 2022 Jury, chaired by Isabel Coixet, and comprised of Laura Bispuri, Antonio Campos, Sofia Djama, Edouard Waintrop, after screening the 18 feature-length films + 12 shorts in competition, awards:

Orizzonti Award for Best Film:
World War III (Jang-e Jahani Sevom) by Houman Seyedi

Orizzonti Award for Best Director:
Vera by Tizza Covi & Rainer Frimmel

Special Orizzonti Jury Prize:
Bread and Salt (Chleb i Sól) by Damian Kocur

Orizzonti Award for Best Actress:
Vera Gemma in the film Vera by Tizza Covi & Rainer Frimmel

Orizzonti Award for Best Actor:
Mohsen Tanabandeh in the film World War III (Jang-e Jahani Sevom) by Houman Seyedi

Orizzonti Award for Best Screenplay:
Fernando Guzzoni for Blanquita also directed by Guzzoni

That's all for now. For the full list of awards (including a few more), head to labiennale.org. Congratulations to all of the winners this year. I have to say this is a particularly strange and unexciting set of winners. Aside from the two Best Actor winners in the Main Competition, the rest of these are not at all my picks from the Venice line-up. My personal favorite of the festival is Todd Field's TÁR and I think this should've won the Golden Lion. Then the Best Actress could go to Ana de Armas in Blonde instead (read our review), as she's phenomenal in that one. As good as Colin Farrell is in The Banshees of Inisherin, the best performance this year is Brendan Fraser in Darren Aronofsky's The Whale. And I also think Athena should've been given a Jury Prize, too. Overall, a very strong selection of films at the 2022 Venice Film Festival this year - even if all my favorites didn't win anything, they're still fantastic films to catch up with when they open around the world. As for this doc, it'll probably go on to win the Oscar, too. For all of our Venice 2022 posts, click here.

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