During Saturday night, this year's awards ceremony was held at the Venice Film Festival. Swedish film director Roy Andersson competed with the film "About the Infinite" and had the chance to take home the festival's most desirable prize - the Golden Lion for best film.
There was no Gold Lion for Andersson, but the Swedish director won the award for best director - the Silver Lion. The gold lion instead went to the movie "Joker", directed by Todd Philips.
Became the first Swedish to winThis is the second time Roy Andersso has been awarded the Venice Festival. In 2014, he became the first Swedish to win the prestigious award, the Gold Lion, with his film "A pigeon sat on a branch and pondered on existence".
During Tuesday's press conference, 76-year-old Roy Andersson arrived in a wheelchair and had to be lifted onto the stage. He also canceled all interviews with the Swedish press the same day.
The cause, according to TT, should be extremely painful hip problems.
Hard competitionA total of 21 directors participated in the competition for the prestigious award.
Among these were seen among others "J'accuse" by Roman Polanski. The film was awarded the critics award at this year's film festival and was the favorite to win the Gold Lion, according to the news agency AFP.
Other films that also won the award were "No.7 Cherry Lane" by Yonfan, "Ad astra" by James Gray and "Joker" by Todd Phillips - who thus won the award.
Only two of the 21 filmmakers who competed this year had female directors.
In 2018, the Venice Film Festival adopted a plan to increase gender equality as it was previously criticized for the lack of female filmmakers among the contestants.