Biennale Cinema 65th Venice Film Festival Official Venezia 65 Awards

Venice, 6th September 2008

The Venezia 65 Jury, chaired by Wim Wenders and comprised of Juriy Arabov, Valeria Golino, Douglas Gordon, Lucrecia Martel, John Landis, and Johnnie To, having viewed all twenty-one films in competition, has decided as follows:

GOLDEN LION for Best Film: "The Wrestler"
Directed by Darren Aronofsky (USA)

SILVER LION for Best Director to:
Aleksey German Jr. for "Bumažnyj Soldat" (Paper Soldier) (Russia)

SPECIAL JURY PRIZE to: "Teza"
Directed by Haile Gerima (Ethiopia, Germany, France)

COPPA VOLPI for Best Actor: Silvio Orlando for "Il papà di Giovanna"
Directed by Pupi Avati (Italy)

COPPA VOLPI for Best Actress: Dominique Blanc for "L’autre"
Directed by Patrick Mario Bernard and Pierre Trividic (France)

MARCELLO MASTROIANNI AWARD for Best Young Actor or Actress: Jennifer Lawrence for "The Burning Plain" by Guillermo Arriaga (USA)

OSELLA for Best Cinematography to: Alisher Khamidhodjaev and Maxim Drozdov for "Bumažnyj Soldat" (Paper Soldier)
Directed by Aleksey German Jr. (Russia)

OSELLA for Best Screenplay to: Haile Gerima for "Teza" by Haile Gerima (Ethiopia, Germany, France)

SPECIAL LION for Overall Work to: Werner Schroeter
The Jury decided to award a Special Lion for his uncompromising and relentlessly innovative work over a period of 40 years to Werner Schroeter.

“LUIGI DE LAURENTIIS” AWARD FOR A DEBUT FILM

The “Luigi De Laurentiis” Award for a Debut Film Jury at the 65th Venice Film Festival, comprised of Abdellatif Kechiche (President), Alice Braga, Gregory Jacobs, Donald Ranvaud, and Heidrun Schleef, has unanimously decided to award the

“LUIGI DE LAURENTIIS” AWARD FOR A DEBUT FILM to:
"Pranzo Di Ferragosto" by Gianni Di Gregorio (SIC - International Critics’ Week, Italy)
Aurelio De Laurentiis and Filmauro award a cash prize, of 100,000 USD, to the winning first film (50,000 to the director, 50,000 to the producer). To the director, an additional film voucher for 40,000 Euro will also be awarded, offered by Kodak.

On the opening night of the 65th Venice Film Festival, George Clooney, Brad Pitt and Tilda Swinton join filmmakers Joel and Ethan Cohen for the premier screening of "Burn After Reading."

An unprecedented display, with a centrepiece of three Golden Lions flying towards the new Palazzo, has been created this year by Dante Ferretti for the set design of the 65th Venice Film Festival which will take place at Lido from August 27– September 6, 2008 under the guidance of Marco Müller and organzed by the Biennale di Venezia, chaired by Paolo Baratta.

In this way, Dante Ferretti (two Oscars for The Aviator in 2005 and Sweeney Todd in 2008, and eight nominations) continues his artistic enhancement of the set designs for the Venice Film Festival, which began in 2004 with the spectacular creation of the now legendary sixty winged Golden Lions.

Following in the wake of the massive "Felliniesque" sphere, which in 2007 symbolically knocked down the historical Palazzo, this year will see the Lions return to centre-stage in the new external set design, which will provide the backdrop for the red carpet. The focus will be on a huge 5 metre high Golden Lion - the traditional symbol of the Festival - tearing through the white screen covering the front of the old facade. It will guide a further two Golden Lions - the symbol of the Festival of the future - towards the area where the new Palazzo will be erected, for which, this year, the "first stone" will be laid.

Dante Ferretti, two Academy Awards and eight further nominations, is the most popular production designer in Hollywood. Besides being Scorsese’s favourite, he is the regular choice of many of the most audacious and visionary Italian and international directors, from Fellini to Ferreri, Pasolini to Scola, Neil Jordan, Terry Gilliam, and Brian De Palma. In 1969 he assumed his first role as set designer on Medea by Pasolini, with whom he formed an intense collaboration for the entire “trilogy of life” (Il Decameron, 1971; I racconti di Canterbury, 1972; Il fiore delle mille e una notte, 1974), and which lasted until Salò o le 120 giornate di Sodoma (1975). After 1979 he began to interpret Fellini’s visions, contributing in a fundamental way to the creation of his dream world, and thus helping to create some of the director’s best films, from Prova d'orchestra (1979) to La voce della luna (1982). He then worked with Marco Ferreri on the provocative Ciao maschio (1979), Storie di ordinaria follia (1981) and Il futuro è donna (1984). On an international level, his career took off with realistic and symbolic sets depicting the Middle Ages, for The Name of the Rose (1982) by Jean-Jacques Annaud. In 1989 he received the first of his eight Oscar nominations, for the baroque sets of The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1988) by Terry Gilliam, and the following year he was once again a nominee with Hamlet (1990) by Franco Zeffirelli. In Hollywood he became a master at reconstructing period sets, and never lapsed into the merely conventional. The creation of period sets represented the predominant feature of his collaboration with Scorsese, with whom he developed an intense and enduring collaboration: films like The Age of Innocence (1993), Casino, Kundun (1997), Gangs of New York (2002), and The Aviator (2005), for which he received the Academy Award for Art Direction, which he shared with his wife Francesca Lo Schiavo. In 2005 he designed the sets for The Black Dahlia by Brian De Palma, the opening film of the 63rd Venice Film Festival. In 2008 he won his second Oscar for art direction on Sweeney Todd, directed by Tim Burton (recipient of the 2007 Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement).