Almodovar’s ‘The Room Subsequent Door’ triumphs at Venice Competition

VENICE -Spanish director Pedro Almodovar’s first English-language film “The Room Subsequent Door”, which tackles the hefty themes of euthanasia and local weather change, received the distinguished Golden Lion award on the Venice Movie Competition on Saturday.

Starring Tilda Swinton and Julianne Moore, the movie obtained an 18-minute standing ovation when it premiered at Venice earlier within the week – one of many longest in latest reminiscence.

Almodovar is a darling of the competition circuit and was awarded a lifetime achievement award at Venice in 2019 for his daring, irreverent and infrequently humorous Spanish-language options.

He additionally received an Oscar in the perfect overseas language class for his 1999 movie “All About My Mom”.

Now aged 74, he has determined to strive his hand at English, focusing his lens on questions of life, demise and friendship. Talking after accumulating his prize, he stated euthanasia shouldn’t be blocked by politics or faith.

“I imagine that saying goodbye to this world cleanly and with dignity is a basic proper of each human being,” he stated, talking in Spanish.

He additionally thanked his two feminine stars for his or her performances.

“This award actually belongs to them, it is a movie about two girls and the 2 girls are Julianne and Tilda,” he stated.

Whereas “The Room Subsequent Door” had been broadly tipped to win, the runner-up Silver Lion award was a shock, going to Italian director Maura Delpero for her slow-paced drama set within the Italian Alps throughout World Battle Two – “Vermiglio”.

Australia’s Nicole Kidman received the perfect actress award for her risque position within the erotic “Babygirl”, the place she performs a hard-nosed CEO, who jeopardises each her profession and her household by having a poisonous affair with a younger, manipulative intern.

Kidman was in Venice on Saturday, however didn’t attend the awards ceremony after studying that her mom had died unexpectedly.

France’s Vincent Lindon was named greatest actor for “The Quiet Son”, a topical, French-language drama a couple of household torn aside by extreme-right radicalism.

ROAD TO OSCARS

The most effective director award went to American Brady Corbet for his 3-1/2 hour-long film “The Brutalist”, which was shot on 70mm celluloid and recounts the epic story of a Hungarian Holocaust survivor performed by Adrien Brody, who seeks to rebuild his life in america.

“Now we have the ability to help one another and inform the Goliath firms that attempt to push us round: ‘No, it is three-and-a-half hours lengthy and it is on 70mm,” he instructed the auditorium on Saturday.

The competition marks the beginning of the awards season and often throws up large favourites for the Oscars, with eight of the previous 12 greatest director awards on the Oscars going to movies that debuted at Venice.

The prize for greatest screenplay went to Murilo Hauser and Heitor Lorega for “I am Nonetheless Right here”, a movie about Brazil’s navy dictatorship, whereas the particular jury award went to the abortion drama “April”, by Georgian director Dea Kulumbegashvili.

Among the many motion pictures that left Venice’s Lido island empty-handed had been Todd Phillips’s “Joker: Folie à Deux,” starring Joaquin Phoenix and Woman Gaga, the sequel to his authentic “The Joker” which claimed the highest prize right here in 2019.

Luca Guadagnino’s “Queer,” with Daniel Craig taking part in a homosexual drug addict, and Pablo Larrain’s Maria Callas biopic “Maria”, starring Angelina Jolie because the celebrated Greek soprano, additionally received plaudits from the critics however didn’t get any awards.

The Venice jury this 12 months was headed by French actress Isabelle Huppert.

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