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The Silver Lion – Grand Jury Prize went to Kaouther Ben Hania’s The Voice of Hind Rajab, a harrowing account of the ultimate telephone name of a six-year-old Palestinian woman trapped in Gaza, which had beforehand earned the pageant’s longest standing ovation.
Benny Safdie acquired Best Director for The Smashing Machine, starring Dwayne Johnson as MMA legend Mark Kerr, whereas Gianfranco Rosi’s Below the Clouds earned the Special Jury Prize.
In appearing, Xin Zhilei received the Volpi Cup for Best Actress for The Sun Rises on Us All, and Toni Servillo was named Best Actor for 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 few ginkgo tree in a medieval college city in Germany.
— La Biennale di Venezia (@la_Biennale) September 6, 2025
Winners for the horizons sidebar, a discovery part led by French filmmaker Julia Ducournau, had been introduced first. En El Camino, in regards to the world of long-haul trucking in Mexico from filmmaker David Pablos, received finest movie. Anuparna Roy was emotional accepting the most effective director prize for her debut characteristic, 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 little one deserves peace, freedom, liberation, and Palestine isn’t any exception,” Ms. Roy stated. “I stand beside Palestine. I would upset my nation but it surely doesn’t matter to me anymore.”
Armani Beauty’s viewers award profitable filmmaker Maryam Touzani (Calle Málaga) additionally used her remarks to highlight Gaza. “How many moms have been made childless,” she stated. “How many extra till this horror is dropped at an finish? We refuse to lose our humanity.”
Aftersun filmmaker Charlotte Wells handed out the debut movie prize to Nastia Korkia for Short Summer, who spoke in regards to the ongoing warfare in Ukraine. Her movie is a loosely autobiographical account of a kid residing together with her grandparents throughout the Chechen warfare.
“I very a lot hope that we are going to preserve our eyes large open and that we are going to discover the energy to cease the warfare,” 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 pageant.
“Thank you, Giorgio Armani, for educating us that creativity lives within the areas the place disciplines meet – style, cinema, artwork, new supplies, structure – simply as occurs every single day right here on the Venice Biennale,” Italian architect Carlo Ratti stated.
This yr’s predominant competitors lineup included many doable Oscar heavyweights. Kathryn Bigelow set off a warning shot about nuclear weapons and the equipment of decision-making together with her pressing, and distressingly sensible, 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 together with his darkly comedic No Other Choice, a satire in regards to the desperation of white-collar employees competing for jobs.
Dwayne Johnson took a critical flip as a fighter grappling with dependancy 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 growing older 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 wonder.
Jude Law furrowed his brows as Vladimir Putin in The Wizard of the Kremlin and Amanda Seyfried put a human, feminist, face to the non secular sect the shakers in The Testament of Ann Lee.
Julia Roberts additionally flexed her appearing muscular tissues as a Yale philosophy professor within the midst of a misconduct accusation towards 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, in regards to the 6-year-old woman killed in Gaza, which reportedly bought a 22-minute standing ovation. The movie is a shattering doc of the Israel-Hamas warfare, 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.
Filmmaker Alexander Payne presided over the primary 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 prime Oscars, together with finest actress for Stone in Poor Things, and finest image and director for del Toro’s The Shape of Water.
Since 2014, the Venice Film Festival has hosted 4 finest image winners, together with The Shape of Water, Birdman, Spotlight and Nomadland. Last yr, that they had a number of eventual Oscar-winning movies within the lineup, together with Brady Corbet’s The Brutalist, which received three together with finest actor for Adrien Brody, Walter Salles’ Best International characteristic winner I’m Still Here, and the animated quick 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.
