The festival’s leading awards placed marginalized women and algorithmic warfare at the center of global cinema.
VENICE, ITALY
Danish-Egyptian filmmaker May el-Toukhy won the Golden Lion at the 83rd Venice International Film Festival for Woman Unknown, a postwar drama examining social punishment, female agency and the selective nature of collective memory.
Set in Denmark after the Second World War, the film follows Marie, a domestic worker persecuted after concealing a wartime relationship with a German soldier. Mathilde Arcel received the Volpi Cup for Best Actress for her performance, giving the production two of the festival’s most prestigious awards.
El-Toukhy was the only woman among the 21 directors competing for the Golden Lion, a disparity that generated renewed criticism of the festival’s gender representation. Jury president Maggie Gyllenhaal emphasized that the film had been selected for its artistic achievement rather than as a symbolic response to the imbalance.
The Special Jury Prize went to Naza, a documentary directed by Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor. Based partly on testimony from Israeli military insiders, the film investigates the reported use of artificial intelligence in selecting targets during Israeli operations in Gaza and the resulting civilian casualties. Its subject generated political criticism, but also one of the festival’s most sustained discussions about technology, accountability and modern warfare.
South Korean director Lee Chang-dong’s Possible Love received the Grand Jury Prize, while Ilya Khrzhanovsky won Best Director for DAU. John Malkovich earned the Volpi Cup for Best Actor for Wild Horse Nine. Together, the awards reflected a festival shaped by historical memory, political conflict and cinema’s continuing effort to make invisible experiences publicly legible.
Cinema cannot resolve history, but it can refuse to let history remain silent.