(Venice) The Venice Film Festival crowned a female Frankenstein with Emma Stone, at the end of a festival marked by the Hollywood strike and the invitation of filmmakers targeted by the #metoo movement.
Posted at 2:10 p.m., updated at 2:59 p.m.
Francois BECKER Agence France-Presse
With “Poor Things,” Greek filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimos (“The Lobster,” “The Favourite”), a regular at festivals, finally comes to consecration.
The film is a kind of female Frankenstein, fantastical and baroque, mostly in black and white. At times harsh, “Poor Things” is both entertainment and a message about how norms weigh on women.
American star Emma Stone, who also produces the film, embodies a sincere nature that gives her sentimental and sexual education. Because of the strike that paralyzed Hollywood, she was unable to make the trip to the Mostra.
The film and Bella Baxter, its protagonist, “an incredible creature, would not exist without Emma Stone, another incredible creature,” said Yorgos Lanthimos as he accepted his award.
In far-right Italy, the jury chaired by Damien Chazelle (“La-la-land,” “First Man”) also sent a political message by awarding several prizes to films that denounced the plight of migrants in Europe.
Agnieszka Holland, the great voice of Polish cinema, received the Special Jury Prize for “ Zielona granica “, which shows the tragic fate of migrants from Syria, Afghanistan and Africa sent back and forth between Poland and Belarus in 2021 and prisoners of a diplomatic game that goes beyond them.
A young Senegalese actor, Seydou Sarr, received the Best Hope award for his role as a young migrant who, at the risk of his life, crosses Africa and the Mediterranean to reach Italy, in “Io capitano” by Matteo Garrone, a film that also won the Silver Lion award for best performance.
PHOTO TIZIANA FABI, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Seydou Sarr
Artificial intelligence
As for the actors, the Mostra highlighted two Americans: Cailee Spaeny, 25, for her first major role, that of the “King’s” wife, Priscilla Presley, in Sofia Coppola’s biopic “Priscilla”, and Peter Sarsgaard, as Jessica the Answers Chastain stars as a man suffering from dementia in “Memory” by Michel Franco.
Unlike many stars starring in major studio films who were unable to travel to Venice during the strike, the two winners took to the stage to accept their trophies.
PHOTO TIZIANA FABI, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Peter Sarsgaard
Peter Sarsgaard took the opportunity to express his support for the strike and to launch a diatribe against artificial intelligence, the screenwriters and actors of which are asking for supervision.
“If we lose this fight, our industry will only be the first of many to go under,” he predicted: medicine or warfare could in turn be entrusted to artificial intelligence, which “paves the way for atrocities”.
PHOTO TIZIANA FABI, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Cailee Spaeny
Mostra was the first international festival to be hit hard by the historic showdown with the studios, although some stars like Adam Driver, Mads Mikkelsen or Jessica Chastain made sure to show their support to the strikers.
It wasn’t just union demands that tried to be heard in Venice.
PHOTO GUGLIELMO MANGIPANE, Portal
Actress Jessica Chastain wears a sweater in support of the writers and actors strike.
Feminist movements have also tried to make their voices heard, notably through collages across the city to denounce the tributes the world’s oldest festival is giving to artists targeted by the #metoo movement, which promotes sexist and sexual violence against women denounced. Women.
Luc Besson, who faced rape charges before being finally dismissed by the French judiciary this year, was in competition with Dogman.
Woody Allen, banned from the American film industry and not prosecuted, presented his 50th film, Coup de Chance, shot for the first time in French, out of competition.
Roman Polanski, who has been on the run from American justice for more than 40 years after being convicted of having sexual relations with a minor, failed to make it to Venice, where his latest film The Palace, also out of competition, received a cold reception.
The director of the Mostra, Alberto Barbera, justified the invitation of these three filmmakers with the demand to distinguish the man from the artist.