'Woman Unknown' Wins Golden Lion in Venice: Full Winners List

Primary Journalistic Dispatch & Direct Reporting

All eyes were on the Lido as John Malkovich ('Wild Horse Nine') and Mathilde Arcel ('Woman Unknown') won best actor and best actress, and Venice sensation 'NAZA' claimed the Special Jury Prize.

Amid a busy fall festival season, all eyes were back on the Lido Saturday night as Woman Unknown won the Venice Film Festival 's coveted Golden Lion for best film.

May el-Toukhy's stylish depiction of post-World War II Denmark came out the most triumphant of all. The film focuses on a maid (Mathilde Arcel) whose past during the Nazi occupation threatens to unravel her future. El-Toukhy, just one of two female filmmakers in competition this year, told THR in a sit-down pre-festival interview : "I've worked 16 hours a day for more than a year. I've spent all my savings. I've used every part of me to make this film and all the resources, all the muscle power I have."

In-Depth Developments & Factual Context

The Danish filmmaker continued onstage: "Making films is very collaborative, which requires sacrifices, and so thank you all for helping me tell the story. For me personally, Woman Unknown talks about the woman's body as a battlefield. At the same time, the film tells the story of invisible women who are not and who do not have a voice … Thank you to the jury for this wonderful honor," she added. "Thank you especially to you, Maggie, because you use your voice [to talk about] the lack of equal opportunities for the directors in the [competition].

Gyllenhaal told Venice at the jury's early presser about the lack of women in competition: "There's a systemic problem […] It's much harder for women to get their films financed. Also, could it be possible that the things that women, having had a different experience of being alive in the world, want to make movies about are not always deemed high art?"

Elsewhere during Saturday's awards , acclaimed Korean auteur Lee Chang-dong won the Silver Lion, Grand Jury Prize for social drama Possible Love . Following a struggling working-class family and the well-to-do documentarian who picks them as a subject for her new film, his film received some of the best reviews out of Venice, with most critics, like THR 's David Rooney, singling out the film's "superlative ensemble" including veteran Korean actors Jeon Do-yeon and Sul Kyung-gu alongside rising stars Zo In-sung and Cho Yeo-jeong.

Industry Impact & Strategic Analysis

Netflix and producer Anonymous Content will be confident of its award-season chances for the feature, which has been selected by South Korea as its submission for the Oscars' best international feature category. "Without the patience and faith of so many people, this film would not have been possible," Lee said while collecting the award. (Check out an exclusive first look at the film, released by THR ahead of Possible Love 's Venice debut.) Possible Love also won the international film critics' Fipresci award for best film in Venice.

Ilya Khrzhanovsky received some overdue flowers for DAU . The Russian filmmaker built a sealed world in Ukraine, populated it with thousands of participants and filmed them for three years. Two decades, 14 films and innumerable scandals later, his original epic finally arrived in Venice - and he took THR inside it all earlier this week .

NAZA , a documentary from Israeli directors Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, and a late addition to the Venice lineup, won the Special Jury Prize after a record-breaking 25-minute standing ovation at its Thursday night premiere. The Venice sensation features testimony from 24 Israeli military officers outlining the systems and protocols they allege Israel uses to target and kill civilians in Gaza. Its title, NAZA , comes from an acronym the Israeli military uses as a shorthand for civilian casualties.

Forward Outlook & Market Perspective

"It's honestly not very easy to stand here," began Abraham as he and Szor accepted the trophy to raucous applause. "I'm thinking of all the people - the Israeli politicians, the journalists back home - who are now attacking this film, denying it, without even seeing it."

"And so much is being done to not look at reality. The reality is that since this festival started, just over these 10 days, Israel killed six Palestinian children in Gaza at least, a three-year-old girl at a school that was bombed, a seven-year-old with her father in a car, two sisters at home sleeping. The Israeli intelligence officers we spoke with talked to us about how this mass killing is systemic, not by accident but by design, actions and murder that are based on total dehumanization of the Palestinians," he continued.

"I want to be very clear: This truth has been documented and is known from the very first day, thanks to Palestinian journalists, [and] more than 200 [journalists] have been killed in Gaza by the Israelis; their voices were silenced and denied," he said. "We believe that the denial of a crime is what helps it persist, and that's why it's important for us that the Israelis see this film … [and] especially here in Italy because your government and the German government are blocking pressure on Israel that can end this, that Americans watch it because that country is funding much of the killing," Abraham added, before thanking the doc's producers.

Riding the wave of immense Oscar buzz, John Malkovich claimed the prestigious Volpi Cup for best actor for his performance in Martin McDonagh's Wild Horse Nine . The pitch-black buddy comedy, starring Malkovich and Sam Rockwell as CIA operatives in Chile in the 1960s, was arguably the biggest crowd-pleaser in Venice this year. The movie is going out worldwide via Searchlight Pictures and boasts a great outing from Malkovich, who gives a sharp and surprisingly touching performance as a veteran CIA agent facing a self-reckoning.

Malkovich wasn't in attendance to accept the prize in person. He told the crowd via a pre-recorded video: "I am really glad to have been chosen for this award which has been given to many actors. […] Thanks to Martin McDonagh for having written an incredible screenplay and for his exceptional direction and for having given me, in fact, the opportunity to play this fantastic role. Thanks to all my colleagues, especially Sam Rockwell," he added. "I'm sorry, unfortunately, I can't be there with you. I would have loved to be there, but I am currently filming another film."

Reporting synthesized and verified under Nexvoro.tech editorial guidelines. Full primary records referenced via Google News US Entertainment.