2024 Venice Film Festival Award Winners: Almodóvar’s ‘The Room Next Door’ Wins The Golden Lion

After 10 days of 10+ minute standing ovations and exciting new titles making their world premieres, the 81st annual Venice Film Festival concluded today with its awards ceremony, which sets the stage for Awards Season. The Isabelle Huppert-headed jury awarded the prestigious Golden Lion for Best Film to Pedro Almodóvar’s The Room Next Door. Based on Sigrid Nunez’s novel “What Are You Going Through,” the Spanish auteur’s English feature debut centers on two old friends in middle age (Julianne Moore and Tilda Swinton) who are reunited under strange, but sweet circumstances. It will soon screen at both TIFF and the 62nd New York Film Festival before Sony Pictures Classics rolls it out in theaters starting December 20.

Maura Delpero’s Italian WWII-set drama Vermiglio picked up the Silver Lion Grand Jury Prize (second place to the Golden Lion), which will also soon screen at TIFF. Set in 1944, it centers on a remote village in the Italian Alps whose way of life is shaken by the arrival of a refugee soldier. Déa Kulumbegashvili’s second feature April won the Special Jury Prize. Both films have yet to find U.S. distribution.

The heavily-praised The Brutalist also won some Venice gold as Brady Corbet took home the Silver Lion for Best Director. It stars Adrien Brody as a sculptor and Holocaust survivor who finds accomplishment and fame as he immigrates to the U.S. The three-and-a-half-hour drama will soon make stops at both TIFF and NYFF. Walter Salles’ 1970s-set Brazilian biopic I’m Still Here won Best Screenplay which was awarded to writers Murilo Hauser and Heitor Lorega.

Ever on a roll, Nicole Kidman took the Lido by storm as she picked up the Volvi Cup for Best Actress for her performance in Halina Reijn’s erotic thriller, Babygirl, which will roll out in theaters Christmas from A24. French megastar Vincent Lindon took home the Volvi Cup for Best Actor for his performance in Delphine Coulin & Muriel Coulin’s The Quiet Son.

The award winners also include honorees from other sections of the festival, including the Orizzonti, Biennale College, and VR programs.

See below the full list of winners and the full ceremony on YouTube.

MAIN COMPETITION:

Golden Lion: The Room Next Door (Pedro Almodóvar)

Silver Lion Grand Jury Prize: ”Vermiglio” (Maura Delpero)

Silver Lion for Best Director: Brady Corbet, “The Brutalist”

Special Jury Prize: “April” (Déa Kulumbegashvili)

Best Screenplay: Murilo Hauser and Heitor Lorega, “I’m Still Here”

Best Actress: Nicole Kidman, “Babygirl”

Best Actor: Vincent Lindon, “The Quiet Son”

Marcello Mastroianni Best Young Actor Award: Paul Kirscher, “And Their Children After Them”

HORIZONS:

Orizzonti Best Film: “The New Year that Never Came” (Bodgan Muresanu)

Orizzonti Best Director: Sarah Friedland, “Familiar Touch”

Orizzonti Special Jury Prize: “One of Those Days When Hemme Dies” (Murat Firatoğlu)

Orizzonti Best Actress: Kathleen Chalfant, “Familiar Touch”

Orizzonti Best Actor: Francesco Gheghi, “Familia”

Orizzonti Best Screenplay: “Happy Holidays” (Scandar Copti)

Orizzonti Best Short Film: “Who Loves the Sun” (Arshia Shakiba)

Lion of the Future Award for a Debut Film: “Familiar Touch” (Sarah Friedland)

Orizzonti Extra Audience Award: “Shahed (The Witness)” (Nader Saeivar)

VENICE CLASSICS:

Venice Classics — Best Documentary: “Chain Reactions” (Alexandre O. Phillipe)

Venice Classics — Best Restored Film: “Ecce Bombo” (Nanni Moretti)

VENICE IMMERSIVE:

Venice Immersive Grand Prize: “Ito Meikū” (Boris Labbé)

Venice Immersive Achievement Prize: “Impulse, Playing with Reality” (Barry Gene Murphy, May Abdalla)

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