World Movie News: The Last 24 Hours
Denmark’s Woman Unknown wins the Golden Lion, NAZA and South Korea’s Possible Love take major honours too, sad news for legendary producer Jeremy Thomas, and happy birthday to Jean Smart, Tyler Perry and Lili Reinhart.
Bit of a lie-in for me, but… eventually… morning all. The Venice results are in, and it’s about as international a spread of winners as you could hope for. Here’s what happened in the world of movies during the last 24 hours.
Woman Unknown claims the Golden Lion: Danish-Egyptian filmmaker May el-Toukhy took home Saturday’s top prize for Woman Unknown, a post-WWII Danish drama following a housemaid whose wartime relationship with a German soldier threatens her engagement to her wealthy employer. El-Toukhy was the only director to solely helm a competition film as a woman this year, and her lead Mathilde Arcel picked up the Volpi Cup for Best Actress in the same ceremony — a rare double win. Elsewhere in the acting prizes, John Malkovich took Best Actor for Wild Horse Nine, while emerging-talent honours went to Malou Khebizi for A Place To Heal.
NAZA and Possible Love round out a genuinely global honours list: As trailed throughout the week, Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor’s record-ovation Gaza documentary NAZA collected the Special Jury Prize, with Abraham noting in his speech that at least six Palestinian children had been killed in Gaza since the festival began. South Korean director Lee Chang-dong’s Possible Love — his first film since 2018’s Burning, and already earmarked for a November Netflix release — took the Silver Lion Grand Jury Prize, while Ilya Khrzhanovsky’s Russian-financed DAU picked up Best Director. Between Denmark, Israel, South Korea and Russia all landing major prizes in one ceremony, it’s hard to think of a Venice in recent memory with a genuinely broader geographic spread of winners.
A sad piece of news: Legendary British producer Jeremy Thomas has died aged 77, passing peacefully at his Oxfordshire home on Friday surrounded by family. Thomas produced more than 80 features across a career spanning five decades, most famously Bernardo Bertolucci’s Oscar-sweeping The Last Emperor, alongside collaborations with David Cronenberg, Jonathan Glazer and Nicolas Roeg. He came from genuine cinema royalty — his father Ralph Thomas directed The 39 Steps, and his uncle Gerald Thomas helmed the Carry On films. Poignantly, his latest producing credit, Takashi Miike’s Bad Lieutenant: Tokyo, premieres at Toronto this week. A name less-well known to most of the general viewing public, but a genuine giant of independent British cinema.
Happy birthday to Jean Smart, Tyler Perry and Lili Reinhart: Rounding things off, Happy Birthday today to Hacks star Jean Smart, who turns 73, filmmaker Tyler Perry, turning 55, and Riverdale actress Lili Reinhart, turning 30.
That’s all for today. Hope you have a good Sunday.
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