{"id":623041,"date":"2026-09-13T03:58:11","date_gmt":"2026-09-13T03:58:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/623041\/"},"modified":"2026-09-13T03:58:11","modified_gmt":"2026-09-13T03:58:11","slug":"venice-golden-lion-goes-to-woman-unknown-postwar-film-about-female-body-as-battleground-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/623041\/","title":{"rendered":"Venice Golden Lion goes to Woman Unknown, postwar film about \u2018female body as battleground\u2019 \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

May el-Toukhy\u2019s Woman Unknown, a European co-production set in the aftermath of the second World War, has, in a marginal upset, won The Golden Lion \u2013 the top prize \u2013 at the 83rd Venice International Film Festival<\/a>. The film, well reviewed on premiere, concerns a young nanny preparing for marriage into a wealthy Copenhagen family. El-Toukhy, a Danish-Egyptian film-maker, was hitherto best known for the 2019 drama Queen of Hearts. <\/p>\n

\u201cTo me personally, Woman Unknown is about the female body as a battleground,\u201d she said from the podium. \u201cAt the same time, the film tells the tale of women who are invisible, unseen and voiceless.\u201d The award from a jury headed by the actor Maggie Gyllenhaal feels pointed following complaints that only two films by women had been selected for the main competition.<\/p>\n

John Malkovich <\/a>won the Volpi Cup, the best actor prize, for his performance as an incorrigible older CIA operative in Martin McDonagh<\/a>\u2019s Wild Horse Nine. The latest work from the London-Irish film-maker and playwright, which co-stars Sam Rockwell in a tale set on Easter Island before the 1973 Chilean coup, is packed full of sharp dialogue and telling political asides.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am humbled to be chosen for this award, which has been given to so many wonderful actors over the past 83 iterations of the Venice Film Festival,\u201d Malkovich said on a video relay. \u201cThank you to the jury for bestowing this honour upon me, and thank you, Martin McDonagh, for writing this lovely screenplay and for your superb directing of it, and for gifting me with this fantastic role.\u201d<\/p>\n

Malkovich, who is both fragile and sparky in the picture, is hereby installed as current favourite for the best actor Oscar, but will receive strong competition from Irish actor Andrew Scott in Simon Stone\u2019s Elsinore, which premiered to raves at the Telluride Film Festival in Colorado as the Venice event was playing out.<\/p>\n

Mathilde Arcel won the Volpi Cup for best actress for her lead role in Woman Unknown. \u201cThis is my first lead role in a in a movie, and it\u2019s my first time at a film festival, and my first time to win a film award,\u201d she said, happily dumbfounded. <\/p>\n

Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor\u2019s NAZA, a documentary, co-produced by The Guardian, concerning the Israeli Defense Forces\u2019 assault on Gaza, was many punters\u2019 tip for the Golden Lion, but ended up with a Special Jury Prize. Added late to the programme and screening towards the close of the event, the film, which is principally concerned with the mass killing of Palestinian civilians, was received with huge enthusiasm at its premiere on the Lido. Abraham and Szor, both from Israel, have already shared the best documentary feature Oscar for their work on No Other Land from 2024 and will surely compete for next year\u2019s Academy Award.<\/p>\n

\"RachelRachel Szor and Yuval Abraham, winners of the Special Jury Prize for NAZA. Photograph: Tiziana Fabi\/AFP via Getty Images <\/p>\n

\u201cThank you to the jury, and we are both very grateful to be here,\u201d Abraham said. \u201cIt\u2019s honestly not very easy to stand here, thinking of all the people, the Israeli politicians, the journalists back home who are now attacking this film, denying it, without even seeing it. And so much is being done as to not look at reality. The reality is that, since this festival started, just over these 10 days, Israel killed six Palestinian children in Gaza.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Grand Jury Prize went to Lee Chang-dong for Possible Love, a hugely long pondering of current infelicities in the economy of South Korea. \u201cI made this film to ask what cinema can and should do in times like these,\u201d the director said. \u201cI take this award as a sign that you want me to keep asking these questions.\u201d<\/p>\n

Saoirse Ronan<\/a> was on the Lido to premiere her directorial debut, a touching vignette titled Paper Plane, but that film lost out in the Orizzonti short films competition to A Few Moments of Happiness by Moroccan-Lebanese film-maker Shaden Safieddine Tazi.<\/p>\n

Founded in 1932, Venice International Film Festival is, after Cannes, easily the second most significant festival on the cinematic calendar. In recent years, the event has premiered a large number of Oscar contenders \u2013 including best picture winners such as The Shape of Water and Nomadland \u2013 but the 2026 edition saw fewer submissions from the American studios. Golden Lions for lifetime achievement were, this year, presented to veteran actors George Clooney and Ellen Burstyn during the festival.<\/p>\n

Awards of the 83rd Venice International Film FestivalGolden Lion for Best Film<\/p>\n

Woman Unknown, May el-Toukhy<\/p>\n

Silver Lion, Grand Jury Prize<\/p>\n

Possible Love, Lee Chang-dong<\/p>\n

Silver Lion for Best Director<\/p>\n

Ilya Khrzhanovsky, DAU<\/p>\n

Special Jury Prize<\/p>\n

NAZA, Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor<\/p>\n

Award for Best Screenplay<\/p>\n

A Good Little Soldier, St\u00e9phane Briz\u00e9, Coralie Am\u00e9d\u00e9o and Olivier Gorce<\/p>\n

Volpi Cup for Best Actor<\/p>\n

John Malkovich, Wild Horse Nine<\/p>\n

Volpi Cup for Best Actress<\/p>\n

Mathilde Arcel, Woman Unknown<\/p>\n

Marcello Mastroianni Award for Best New Young Actor or Actress<\/p>\n

Malou Khebizi, A Place to Heal<\/p>\n

Luigi De Laurentis Award for Debut Film<\/p>\n

House of the Wind, Auguste Bernard Kouemo Yanghu<\/p>\n

Armani Beauty Audience Award<\/p>\n

I Matter, Alina Serban<\/p>\n

Horizons, Best Film<\/p>\n

Diane in the Loop, Ann Sirot and Rapha\u00ebl Balboni<\/p>\n

Horizons, Best Director<\/p>\n

Jacqueline Lentzou, A Day in the Life of Jo: Chapter Phaedra<\/p>\n

Horizons, Special Jury Prize<\/p>\n

House of the Wind, Auguste Bernard Kouemo Yanghu<\/p>\n

Horizons, Best Actor<\/p>\n

Riccardo Scamarcio, Children of the Monkey<\/p>\n

Horizons, Best Actress<\/p>\n

Laleh Marzban, Falling House<\/p>\n

Horizons, Best Screenplay<\/p>\n

Children of the Monkey, Tommaso Landucci<\/p>\n

Best Short Film<\/p>\n

A Few Moments of Happiness, Shaden Safieddine Tazi<\/p>\n

Venice Classics, Best Restored Film<\/p>\n

Long Night of 1943, Florestano Vancini<\/p>\n

Venice Immersive, Grand Prize<\/p>\n

The Pigeon Ring, Shixin Tao and Yuqi Zhang<\/p>\n

Venice Immersive, Special Jury Prize<\/p>\n

Out of the Ashes, Rory Mitchell and Nonny de la Pe\u00f1a<\/p>\n

Venice Immersive, Achievement Prize<\/p>\n

Empire at Sea, Peter Flaherty<\/p>\n

Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement<\/p>\n

George Clooney, Ellen Burstyn<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"May el-Toukhy\u2019s Woman Unknown, a European co-production set in the aftermath of the second World War, has, in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":623042,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[5116,93,3409,61,60,63788,30313,57377,5052,802],"class_list":["post-623041","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-andrew-scott","tag-entertainment","tag-gaza-strip","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-john-malkovich","tag-maggie-gyllenhaal","tag-martin-mcdonagh","tag-saoirse-ronan","tag-venice-film-festival"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/623041","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=623041"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/623041\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/623042"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=623041"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=623041"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=623041"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}