Danish-Egyptian director May el-Toukhy’s “Woman Unknown” won the Golden Lion at the 83rd Venice Film Festival Saturday, capping a competition where an Israeli documentary about Israeli military conduct in Gaza emerged as one of the festival’s most talked-about entries.
El-Toukhy’s film, set in Denmark immediately after liberation from Nazi occupation, follows a young housemaid named Marie who is engaged to marry her wealthy widowed employer while concealing a wartime relationship with a German soldier. She was the only woman to direct solo among this year’s main competition filmmakers, and her lead actress, Mathilde Arcel, took home the festival’s best actress prize as well, a rare double win jury president Maggie Gyllenhaal said the panel felt justified making because its vote for Arcel was unanimous.
The festival’s special jury prize went to “Naza,” a documentary from Israeli filmmakers Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor built on testimony from two dozen Israeli military insiders describing what the film alleges are systematic practices resulting in Palestinian civilian deaths in Gaza. Shot in secrecy over three years on Tel Aviv rooftops, the film was added to the festival’s lineup late at the directors’ request and received a 25-minute standing ovation at its premiere, one of the longest in recent Venice history.
Accepting the award, Abraham addressed the film’s critics directly. “It’s honestly not very easy to stand here, thinking of all the Israeli politicians and journalists who are now attacking this film and denying it without even seeing it,” he said, arguing that much effort was being spent avoiding the reality it depicts. The Israeli military has denied the allegations in the film.
South Korean director Lee Chang-dong won the Silver Lion grand jury prize for “Possible Love,” his first film in eight years. Russian filmmaker Ilya Khrzhanovsky, who renounced his citizenship over the war in Ukraine, won best director for “Dau,” a project about Soviet nuclear physicist Lev Landau decades in the making, and dedicated the prize to Ukrainians. John Malkovich won best actor for his role in the CIA comedy “Wild Horse Nine,” accepting via video message from a shoot in Montreal. The festival also handed lifetime achievement Golden Lions to George Clooney and Ellen Burstyn.
