Venice Film Festival
Venice Film Festival 2009 Winners
Venice Film Festival’s jury announced the movie “Lebanon” was the winner of the Golden Lion on the last day of the 11-day screening of films from around the world.
“Lebanon,” tells the story of Israeli paratroopers searching a hostile town. The movie is a look at war from inside a military tank by Israeli helmer Samuel Maoz, based on his personal experience as a young soldier during his country’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon.
“I dedicate this award to all those thousands of people all over the world who came back from the war, like me, safe and sound. Apparently they are fine. They walk, get married, have children. But inside them, the memories will remain stuck in their souls,” said Maoz at the award ceremony.
The Silver Lion for best director went to New York-based Iranian visual artist Shirin Neshat for her first feature “Women Without Men,” an Iranian film about women and repression.
Neshat launched an appeal to the Iranian government to “give the people of Iran what they should have: basic human rights, freedom, democracy.”
“Soul Kitchen,” set amid the hip and grungy multi-ethnic set in his native Hamburg, by German-Turkish director Fatih Akin, won the Special Jury Prize.
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Venice Film Festival 2009 3D Award
This year’s Venice Film Festival has announced the nine films in competition for the event’s first 3-D award. They are all from the US.
“Up” by Pete Docter
“Coraline” by Henry Selick
“Battle for Terra” by Aristomenis Tsirbas
“Monsters vs. Aliens” by Rob Letterman and Conrad Vernon
“Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs” by Carlos Saldanha
“Jonas Brothers: The 3-D Concert Experience” by Bruce Hendricks
“The Hole” by Joe Dante
“Journey to the Center of the Earth in 3-D” by Eric Brevig
“My Bloody Valentine” by Patrick Lussier
Venice Film Festival Lineup 2009
Venice Film Festival which will run 2nd to 12th September 2009 unveiled its lineup with 71 world premieres.
Marco Müller is the director of the 66th Venice International Film Festival. He has been heading the Venice Biennale’s Cinema section since 2004.
There are six US movies which will be in competition and four out of competition at this year’s Venice Festival.
“Everybody thought that the writers’ strike and the economic crisis had created a stall in American cinema. Instead this year, like never before, we found such ample offerings coming from the U.S. both from established directors like Steven Soderbergh and first-timers like Tom Ford,” Müller said.
John Hillcoat’s “The Road,” an adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s post-apocalyptic novel, starring Viggo Mortensen and Charlize Theron, Werner Herzog’s remake of “Bad Lieutenant” – “Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans,” with Nicolas Cage and Eva Mendes, Michael Moore’s documentary “Capitalism: A Love Story,” Todd Solondz’s “Life During Wartime,” George Romero’s “Survival of the Dead” and Tom Ford’s directing debut “A Single Man,” starring Colin Firth and Julianne Moore.
US non-competing movies are Steven Soderbergh’s “The Informant!,” with Matt Damon, Grant Heslov’s military mind-control satire “The Men Who Stare at Goats,” starring George Clooney, Ewan McGregor, Kevin Spacey and Jeff Bridges, Joe Dante’s 3-D horror pic “The Hole,” and Oliver Stone’s “South of the Border” documentary, about Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.
“Mr. Nobody” marks the English-language debut of Belgian helmer Jaco van Dormael (”Toto the Hero”) and stars Diane Kruger, Sarah Polley and Jared Leto.
Check out the Venice Film Festival 2009 Lineup:
IN COMPETITION
“36 vues du Pic Saint Loup,” Jacques Rivette (France)
“Accident,” Cheang Pou-Soi (China-Hong Kong)
“Baaria,” Giuseppe Tornatore (Italy) – Opening Film
“Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans,” Werner Herzog (U.S.)
“Between Two Worlds,” Vimukthi Jayasundara (Sri Lanka)
“Capitalism: A Love Story,” Michael Moore (U.S.)
“La doppia ora,” Giuseppe Capotondi (Italy)
“Il grande sogno,” Michele Placido (Italy)
“Lebanon,” Samuel Maoz (Israel)
“Life During Wartime,” Todd Solondz (U.S.)
“Lo spazio bianco,” Francesca Comencini (Italy)
“Lourdes,” Jessica Hausner (Austria)
“Mr. Nobody,” Jaco van Dormael (France)
“Persecution,” Patrice Chereau (France)
“Prince of Tears,” Yonfan (Hong Kong)
“The Road,” John Hillcoat (U.S.)
“A Single Man,” Tom Ford (U.S.)
“Soul Kitchen,” Fatih Akin (Germany)
“Survival of the Dead,” George Romero (U.S.)
“Tetsuo the Bullet Man,” Shinya Tsukamoto (Japan)
“The Traveler,” Ahmed Maher (Egypt)
“White Material,” Claire Denis (France)
“Women Without Men,” Shirin Neshat (Germany)
Ang Lee To Head Venice Film Festival Jury
Director Ang Lee (”Hulk” from 2003, “The Hire: Chosen,” “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon“) will head Venice Film Festival jury this year.
Ang Lee twice won the Venice Film Festival’s prestigious Golden Lion award.
The Taiwanese-born director won the award in 2007 for “Lust, Caution,” and in 2005 for “Brokeback Mountain,” for which he also won a best directing Oscar.
His next movies are “Taking Woodstock” and “A Little Game.”
The festival made the announcement Friday. Last year’s jury was headed by German film director Wim Wenders.
Venice Film Festival will be held September 2-12, 2009.
“The Wrestler” Footage
AP posted a clip from Darren Aronofsky-directed “The Wrestler“, starring Mickey Rourke, Marisa Tomei and Evan Rachel Wood. This clip features footage from the movie and interviews with Aronofsky and Rourke.
Mickey Rourke plays Randy “The Ram” Robinson who comes out of retirement to try to knock down an old rival.
Mickey is no stranger to knocking people out – he used to be a pro boxer.
“The Wrestler” has won the top award – Golden Lion – at the Venice Film Festival.
Darren Aronofsky’s “The Wrestler” wins Venice’s Golden Lion
Venice Film Festival will be remembered for Rourke’s performance in Darren Aronofsky’s “The Wrestler“, which the actor and critics agree is his best yet.
“The Wrestler” won the coveted Golden Lion award for best movie on Saturday.
“Darren Aronofsky came here a couple of years ago and fell on his ass,” Mickey Rourke told a packed Sala Grande crowd after the award was announced, referring to Aronofsky’s “The Fountain,” which flopped in Venice in 2006. “I’m glad he had the balls to come back. I don’t think he wanted to come back but I told him, “You have to come back’ and he did.”
The award seals his comeback from the Hollywood wilderness, and comments that Rourke is ready to ditch his bad-boy image and cooperate with directors suggest there is more to come.
“A guy like me changes hard, I didn’t want to change, but I had to change,” the star of 1980s hits “9-1/2 Weeks” and “Angel Heart” told in an interview in Venice.
There was controversy at Saturday’s closing ceremony when jury president Wim Wenders criticized rules which prevent the Golden Lion winner also picking up best acting prizes, suggesting Rourke should have won that too.
The Silver Lion for best director was won by Russia’s Alexei German Jr. for “Paper Soldier“, set on the windswept steppes of Kazakhstan and centring on the 1960s Soviet space program.
The best actor prize went to Silvio Orlando for his acclaimed portrayal of an overprotective father in “Il Papa di Giovanna” (Giovanna’s Father).
The best actress prize went to France’s Dominique Blanc in “L’Autre” (The Other One), a haunting tale of a woman who becomes dangerously obsessed with a young ex-boyfriend.
“Teza“, by Ethiopian director Haile Gerima, picked up two prizes, the special jury award and best screenplay.
The story chronicles the life of an Ethiopian intellectual who flees his country during the Marxist “red terror” in the 1980s, only to be attacked in Germany by racist youths.
Jennifer Lawrence of the United States was named best emerging actress for her role in “The Burning Plain“, in which she appeared alongside Kim Basinger and Charlize Theron.
As well as “The Wrestler”, “The Hurt Locker” by U.S. director Kathryn Bigelow impressed critics with its portrayal of the perils faced by a bomb disposal unit in Iraq, while actress Anne Hathaway generated awards buzz in “Rachel Getting Married“.
Venice 2008 – Review
The competition film, “The Wrestler,” which stars Mickey Rourke, Marisa Tomei and Evan Rachel Wood, packed three Venice screenings Friday and prompted speculation among festival participants that Mickey Rourke could be a candidate for Venice’s best actor prize, which will be announced with the other major awards Saturday.
Mickey Rourke has given what critics are calling the performance of his life in Darren Aronofsky’s “The Wrestler” in which he plays a lonely, washed out wrestler whose story poignantly mirrors the Hollywood outsider’s own troubled past.
“Wrestler,” which centers on an aging former professional wrestler, is the fest’s final premiere at the Sala Grande.
Rourke, who received a rare standing ovation at a press conference, is generating early Oscar chatter. He told in an interview that “The Wrestler” was “the best … movie I’ve ever made.”
The film, the last of 21 movies in the main competition to premiere, is a contender both for the top actor award and the coveted Golden Lion for best picture, critics say. The festival wraps Saturday with its prize ceremony.
Anne Hathaway also impressed in her unusually dark role in “Rachel Getting Married,” Jonathan Demme’s touching wedding drama that has been lauded in Venice.
A third late entry, Thursday’s premiere, “The Hurt Locker” by U.S. director Kathryn Bigelow, leads an informal poll of Italian critics who were impressed by its portrayal of the perils faced by a bomb disposal unit in Iraq led by a reckless sergeant.
