The 78th edition of the Venice Film Festival awarded the Golden Lion to the French director Audrey Diwan, for her film “The Event”, based on the autobiographical story by the novelist Annie Ernaux.
Audrey Diwan, whose second film after “Mais vous êtes fous“, is also a journalist, novelist and screenwriter – she co-wrote the scripts for Bac Nord and La French.
The Golden Lion was awarded unanimously by the jury chaired by the South Korean director Bong Joon-Ho (Parasite).
The film tells the story of Anne, a carefree student in France in the early 1960s. At that time, clandestine abortion was punishable by prison for those who performed it as well as for those who participated in it. It was decriminalized in 1975.
Anne discovers that she is pregnant, but, coming from a working-class background, she wants to continue her studies in literature to build a future for herself outside her native village. No one in her immediate circle wants to help her.
The film is very realistic and close to what women had to endure at the time in order to have a clandestine abortion, sometimes at the risk of their lives and illegally.
“I made this film with anger and desire, I made it with my belly, with my gut with my heart,” said the director. “I wanted it to be an experience,” a “journey into the skin of this young woman.”
The Venice Film Festival also rewarded other artists, with the Silver Lion for Best Director going to Jane Campion for The Power of the Dog, a western about toxic masculinity, shown through the confrontation of two brothers.
Penélope Cruz won the prize for best actress on Saturday night for her role in “Madres Paralelas” by director Pedro Almodovar.
Finally, the Special Jury Prize was awarded to the Italian Michelangelo Frammartino for Il Buco, in which young cavers begin an exploration in an Italian village in the 1960s.
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