The Venice Film Festival on Saturday, September 7, awarded its Golden Lion to "Joker", the American Todd Phillips, a dive into the origins of Batman's enemy, while the Grand Jury Prize returned to historical thriller "J'accuse" by Roman Polanski, whose selection sparked controversy. The French actress Ariane Ascaride also made headlines with a political speech in tribute to the dead migrants in the Mediterranean.
"Thank you for trusting me with your crazy talent," said award-winning director Todd Phillips, best known for his comedies, including the hit trilogy "Very bad trip" at his actor Joaquin Phoenix. He pointed out that his actor, impressive and disturbing in his role as a tortured and sick man, abused by life, was "the most ferocious, courageous and open-minded lion he knows".
In an attempt to give a new approach to the genre of the superhero movie, "Joker", who succeeds "Roma" of the Mexican Alfonso Cuarón, is centered on the figure of this iconic villain, to better understand how this unloved man could go into madness.
"That an industry like the United States takes the risk of making 'Joker' is brave, it is a reflection on the heroes and anti-heroes," said the president of the jury, the Argentine director Lucrecia Martel, during a press conference.
Polanski and "J'accuse", the story of a filmmaker who considers himself "persecuted"
The Grand Prix of the Jury, the second most important award of the Mostra, returned to the "J'accuse" of Roman Polanski. The film tells the Dreyfus Affair, a major antisemitic scandal of the late nineteenth century in France, from the point of view of Lieutenant-Colonel Georges Picquart. The latter had rehabilitated the captain unjustly convicted for acts of espionage manufactured from scratch.
Already rewarded the same day with the Fipresci prize of international criticism in Venice, "J'accuse" had convinced a good part of the press. The film was ranked first in a panel of international and Italian journalists published during the festival. But he had also been controversial even before the beginning of the competition, feminists having regretted his selection, because of the lawsuit against the director in the United States for the rape of a minor in 1977. Roman Polanski had drawn the parallel between history of his film and his own life, considering himself "persecuted".
The president of the jury had sparked a new controversy on the first day of the festival saying that "it does not separate the man from the work" and saying "very embarrassed" by his presence in competition. This before returning to her comments, saying that she was "in no way opposed". "An author is a human being The worst thing that can be done to a person is to separate him from his work.This is not possible", she reaffirmed, Saturday, after the winners, highlighting by elsewhere that there was "no unanimity" in the jury for the entire list.
It is the wife of Roman Polanski, the French actress Emmanuelle Seigner, who came to get her prize, just "thank the jury" and say that the filmmaker Franco-Polish 86 years wanted to "thank its producers" and "all his actors and his technical team".
French Ariane Ascaride dedicates her prize to dead migrants at sea
The Volpi Cup of the best female performer has returned to the French Ariane Ascaride, for "Gloria Mundi" by Robert Guédiguian. Recalling that she was descended from Italian immigrants, who came to France to "flee misery," the French actress, known for her political commitment, dedicated her prize to the dead migrants at sea, evoking with emotion "those who live for eternity at the bottom of the Mediterranean ".
The Best Actor Award went to Italian actor Luca Marinelli for his role in Martin Eden, an adaptation of Pietro Marcello's Jack London novel. The Italian actor has dedicated his prize to "all those who save people at sea".
The award went to Sweden's Roy Andersson for "About Endlessness" and the screenplay to Hong Kong's Yonfan. Receiving his prize, he said he hoped that the situation in the former British colony would "return to normal" so that the inhabitants could "feel free again".
With AFP