{"id":137737,"date":"2025-09-06T19:25:07","date_gmt":"2025-09-06T19:25:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/137737\/"},"modified":"2025-09-06T19:25:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-06T19:25:07","slug":"venice-film-festival-2025-golden-lion-and-other-awards-winners-list","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/137737\/","title":{"rendered":"Venice Film Festival 2025 Golden Lion and Other Awards Winners List"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tThe undeniably robust 82nd edition of the Venice<\/a> International<\/a> Film Festival has come to a triumphant finish. <\/p>\n

\n\tHeading into Saturday night\u2019s ceremony, Tunisian director Kaouther Ben Hania\u2019s The Voice of Hind Rajab<\/a> was widely viewed as the movie to beat for this year\u2019s Golden Lion. The powerful Gaza-set drama, which tells the story of a 6-year-old Palestinian girl\u2019s desperate pleas for rescue after Israeli forces killed her relatives, received a thunderous 21-minute standing ovation<\/a> at its world premiere, one of the longest in the Venice Film Festival<\/a>\u2018s history.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe film ended up going home with the festival\u2019s second-place Grand Jury prize (Silver Lion).<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI dedicate this world to the Palestinian Red Crescent and to all those who have risked everything to save lives in Gaza. They are real heroes,\u201d Ben Hania said in her powerful acceptance speech. \u201cThe voice of Hind is the voice of Gaza itself, a cry for rescue the entire world could hear, yet no one answered.
Her voice will continue. Her voice will continue to echo until accountability is real, until justice is served.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tHollywood heavyweights Brad Pitt, Joaquin Phoenix, Alfonso Cuar\u00f3n and others boosted the movie\u2019s profile ahead of the festival by joining its team as executive producers, while critics hailed it as an \u201cintensely involving and resounding\u201d<\/a> indictment of Israel\u2019s genocidal campaigns against the Palestinian population.<\/p>\n

\n\tJim Jarmusch\u2019s delicate triptych Father Mother Sister Brother<\/a>, critically celebrated for its effortless poignancy, was the night\u2019s dark horse champ, handing the American indie film icon his first Venice Golden Lion. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cOh shit,\u201d Jarmusch said as he accepted his trophy, before adding, \u201cAll of us here who make films, we\u2019re not motivated by competition, but I truly appreciate this unexpected honor.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cArt does not have to address politics directly to be political,\u201d Jarmusch went on. \u201cIt can engender empathy and a connection between us, which is really the first step for solving things, and problems that we have. So I thank you for appreciating our quiet film.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tFather Mother Sister Brother is composed of three separate but thematically linked stories, each exploring adult siblings and their strained relationships with their parents. The film\u2019s outstanding ensemble cast includes Tom Waits, Adam Driver, Mayim Bialik, Charlotte Rampling, Cate Blanchett, Vicky Krieps and Indya Moore, among others. The Hollywood Reporter\u2018s lead critic summed the film up as a funny, tender, astutely observed jewel.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tBennie Safdie brought home the festival\u2019s best director prize on Saturday night for his offbeat MMA biopic The Smashing Machine, his first feature as a solo director without his brother Josh Safdie, and Dwayne Johnson\u2019s first movie as a serious dramatic actor. <\/p>\n

\n\tSafdie gave an emotional shoutout to his star as he accepted his trophy, saying, \u201cOh my god, Dwayne, my friend, my brother, my partner \u2014 shoulder and shoulder \u2014 I just want to thank you for diving in headfirst with a blindfold and X-ray vision. You truly performed with no net, and we jumped off the cliff together. We grew together, learned together.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tChinese actress Xin Zhilei took home the festival\u2019s first major awards<\/a> category, winning the best actress prize for her heart-wrenching performance in Chinese director Cai Shangjun\u2019s drama The Sun Rises on Us All. The trophy was handed to Xin by jury member and fellow Chinese arthouse star Zhao Tao (Ash Is the Purest White). <\/p>\n

\n\tAnd as many on the Lido predicted over the past week, best actor honors went to the great Italian theater actor turned film icon Toni Servillo for his humane and hilarious performance as the president of Italy\u00a0in Paolo Sorrentino\u2019s meditative drama La Grazia.\u00a0Critics have celebrated the film as a return to form for the Italian director and star, sparking talk of a potential repeat of their awards season magic in 2013, when their collaboration The Great Beauty won the Oscar in the best international film category.<\/p>\n

\n\tFrench filmmaker Val\u00e9rie Donzelli and her co-writer Gilles Marchand won the best screenplay prize with their script for At Work, an adaptation of a novel of the same name by\u00a0author Franck Court\u00e8s. The film is a drama about a successful photographer who gives up everything to pursue a dream of becoming a writer.<\/p>\n

\n\tNothing was certain until the ceremony was underway on Saturday, thanks to the absurd number of must-see movies that festival boss Alberto Barbera had secured for the 2025 program. Netflix brought its strongest slate in years to Italy, including Noah Baumbach\u2019s George Clooney star vehicle Jay Kelly, Kathryn Bigelow\u2019s gripping geopolitical thriller A House of Dynamite and Guillermo del Toro\u2019s dark reimagining of Frankenstein, starring Jacob Elordi as the creature. And scores of the world\u2019s top auteurs came to compete with strong new titles \u2014\u00a0many of them instant Oscar contenders the moment the customary standing ovations wound down each night inside Venice\u2019s Sala Grande cinema.<\/p>\n

\n\tVenice\u2019s takeaway after nearly two weeks of peerless moviegoing was resounding: The business model of theatrical film may be under relentless assault, but the art form remains as vital as ever. <\/p>\n

\n\tKorean maestro Park Chan-wook\u2019s wildly inventive black comedy No Other Choice was possibly the festival favorite with critics, while Yorgos Lanthimos\u2019 bonkers Bugonia and Paolo Sorrentino\u2019s aching La Grazia were also celebrated as exquisite returns to form. Show-stopping performances came in the form of Julia Roberts in Luca Guadagnino\u2019s provocative #MeToo-themed thriller After the Hunt, Amanda Seyfried as the riveting lead of Mona Fastvold\u2019s visionary period drama Ann Lee and Dwayne Johnson in his debut as a serious dramatic lead in Benny Safdie\u2019s MMA biopic The Smashing Machine. <\/p>\n

\n\tAnd there was much more: Jude Law as Vladimir Putin in Olivier Assayas\u2019 The Wizard of the Kremlin, France\u2019s Fran\u00e7ois Ozon back in fine form with Albert Camus adaptation The Stranger, Willem Dafoe pulling double-duty with characteristic excellence in Late Fame and The Souffleur, Julian Schnabel\u2019s must-see, Megalopolis-like misfire In the Hand of Dante (with a cast including Oscar Isaac, Gal Gadot, Gerard Butler, Al Pacino, John Malkovich, Martin Scorsese and Jason Momoa), and the one and only Werner Herzog receiving a Golden Lion for lifetime achievement from none less than fellow uber-auteur Francis Ford Coppola.<\/p>\n

\n\tTwo-time Oscar-winning director\u00a0Alexander Payne (The Holdovers,\u00a0Sideways) chaired the panel of global film figures tasked with the difficult duty of selecting this year\u2019s winners. Payne\u2019s jury included Brazilian actress Fernanda Torres,\u00a0Iranian auteur Mohammad Rasoulof, French director\u00a0St\u00e9phane Briz\u00e9, Italian filmmaker\u00a0Maura Delpero (Vermiglio), Chinese actress\u00a0Zhao Tao and Palme d\u2019Or winning Romanian director Cristian Mungiu.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThe ceremony included a tribute and prolonged standing ovation for the late, great Italian fashion designer Giorgio Armani, who passed away Thursday<\/a> at the age of 91.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThank you, Giorgio Armani, for teaching us that creativity thrives in spaces where disciplines meet \u2014fashion, cinema, art, new materials, architecture \u2014 just like they do every day here at the Venice Biennale,\u201d said Carlo Ratti, curator of the 2025 Venice Architecture Biennale, which is currently underway alongside the film festival. <\/p>\n

\n\tThe 2025 Horizons section (Orizzonti) \u2014 which highlights the latest aesthetic trends in cinema with special attention to debut films \u2014 honored Mexican director David Pablos\u2019 hauntingly original road movie En El Camino with its best film prize. The film follows a young drifter and a taciturn trucker who link up and forge a precarious bond on Mexico\u2019s dangerous highways.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis film comes from a very personal place \u2014 from the guts \u2014 and it\u2019s beautiful to see that it connects with other people,\u201d said Pablos in his brief acceptance speech.<\/p>\n

\n\tThis year\u2019s Horizons jury was\u00a0chaired by French director and Palme d\u2019Or winner Julia Ducournau of Titane fame. <\/p>\n

Italy\u2019s Benedetta Porcaroli took Horizons\u2019 best actress prize for the drama The Kidnapping of Arabella and Giacomo Covi nabbed best actor for his turn in the Italian-French coming-of-age film A Year of School. Indian filmmaker Anuparna Roy won best director for Songs of the Forgotten Trees, a moving drama set in Mumbai about an unlikely bond that forms between a part-time sex worker and a corporate employee. And the Orizzonti jury prize was handed to Japanese director Akio Fujimoto for his drama Lost Land, the story of two Rohingya child refugees on a perilous journey to reach Malaysia. <\/p>\n

\n\tThe 2025 Venice Film Festival ran Aug. 27-Sept. 6. Winners will be noted below as they\u2019re announced live. Refresh for the latest.<\/p>\n

\n\tMain Competition<\/p>\n

\n\tGolden Lion \u2014 Best Film
Father Mother Sister Brother<\/p>\n

Silver Lion \u2014 Grand Jury Prize
The Voice of Hind Rajab<\/p>\n

Silver Lion \u2014 Best Director
Benie Safdie for The Smashing Machine<\/p>\n

Special Jury Prize
Below the Clouds by Gianfranco Rossi<\/p>\n

Best Actor
Toni Servillo for La Grazia (Italy)<\/p>\n

Best Actress
Xin Zhilei for The Sun Rises on Us All (China)<\/p>\n

Best Screenplay
Val\u00e9rie Donzelli & Gilles Marchand for At Work (France)<\/p>\n

Best Young Actress
Luna Wedler for Silent Friend (Germany, France, Hungary)
Armani Beauty Audience Award
Calle M\u00e1laga\u00a0by Maryam Touzani<\/p>\n

\n\tLion of the Future (Venice Award for Debut Film)
Short Summer by Nastia Korkia<\/p>\n

\n\tOrizzonti (aka Horizons Section)<\/p>\n

\n\tBest Film
En El Camino by David Pablos (Mexico)<\/p>\n

Special Jury Prize
Lost Land by Akio Fujimoto (Japan, France, Malaysia, Germany)<\/p>\n

Best Director
Anuparna Roy for Songs of the Forgotten Trees (India)<\/p>\n

Best Screenplay
Ana Cristina Barragan for The Ivy (Ecuador, Mexico, France, Spain)<\/p>\n

Best Actress
Benedetta Porcaroli for The Kidnapping of Arabella (Italy)<\/p>\n

Best Actor
Giacomo Covi for A Year of School (Italy, France)<\/p>\n

Best Short Film
Without Kelly, Lovisa Sir\u00e9n (Sweden)<\/p>\n

\n\tVenice Classics Section<\/p>\n

\n\tBest Documentary on Cinema
Mata Hari, Joe Beshenkovsky, James A. Smith (USA)<\/p>\n

Best Restored Film
Bashu the Little Stranger, Bahram Beyzaie (Iran)<\/p>\n

\n\tVennice Immersive Section<\/p>\n

\n\tVenice Immersive Achievement Prize
The Long Goodbye, by Victor Maes and Kate Voet (Belgium, Luxembourg, The Netherlands)<\/p>\n

\n\tSpecial Jury Prize
Less Than 5gr of Saffron, by N\u00e9gar Motevalymeidanshah (France)<\/p>\n

Grand Prize
The Clouds Are Two Thousand Meters Up, by Singing Chen and Shuping Lee (Taiwan)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The undeniably robust 82nd edition of the Venice International Film Festival has come to a triumphant finish. Heading…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":123284,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[10546,88,2091,15741,73834,24350,24388],"class_list":["post-137737","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-awards","tag-entertainment","tag-international","tag-venice","tag-venice-2025","tag-venice-film-festival","tag-venice-film-festival-2025"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137737","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=137737"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137737\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/123284"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=137737"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=137737"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=137737"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}