For the second time in history, Laura Poitras takes the documentary to the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival

Two warriors met. Behind the camera, the filmmaker Laura Poitras, capable of putting the US Government in check with her works. And, as the subject of her latest documentary, photographer Nan Goldin: a lifetime of creative battles, family battles, and even an almost impossible, yet victorious fight against the all-powerful Sackler family of millionaires. Inevitably, then, that the film, All the Beauty and the Bloodshed, also will win: this Saturday he received the Golden Lion at the Venice festival. A well-deserved triumph, but no less unheard of for that: it is the second time that a documentary has dominated the list of winners of the oldest film festival in the world. sacral GRAby Gianfranco Rosi, in 2013, was the first.

Poitras, after all, knows about complicated fights: he centered one of his previous films, CitizenFour, in the former spy Edward Snowden, who publicized the program of mass surveillance on a global scale by the CIA and the National security agency American. The creator won an Oscar, but she also suffered harsh pressure and controls from the Executive of her country, as she herself recounted these days. She added that she is a firm believer in independent and uncomfortable documentaries. Her recipe has expired again.

This time, film the extraordinary life of Goldin. And, incidentally, narrates the seventies and eighties in New York, the independent cultural creation, the disaster of AIDS and opiate addiction. Photographer always ahead of her time, with the gap of pain left by the disappearance of her sister and of so many friends who took HIV, the artist also has a present as an activist: she started a fight against the Sacklers, known above all for their rich donations to great museums, but increasingly repudiated also thanks to the denunciations of Goldin and his companions —and the book the empire of painby Patrick Radden Keefe. They are accused of causing 400,000 deaths from overdose only in the US due to their opiate drugs that gave them millionaire profits. The Golden Lion, therefore, rewards two creators always ready to fight. And used to winning.

All Saint Omer, by Alice Diop, focuses on a trial. There is a defendant, although it does not matter so much whether she is guilty or innocent. What she tells are all the uncomfortable reflections that the director has been able to condense in the process for infanticide that she narrates. First, it got a favorable verdict from critics. And today, Saturday, the Grand Prize of the Jury of the Mostra rules in her favor again. Incidentally, it also won the Luigi de Laurentiis award for best fiction debut. In a contest where the average quality is high, but the courage to try something very different is scarce, one of the films most willing to take risks triumphs. Diop has played it. And she has won. “The heart of a woman of color can reach the universal. And that is also a political message,” Diop said from the stage.

Luca Guadagnino, already on the red carpet prior to the gala, had his eyes shining. Perhaps not even he expected a double recognition: Silver Lion for the best address for Bones and All Y Marcello Mastroianni award for the best revelation performer for Taylor Russell, the protagonist of the work. The Italian, therefore, devoured the list of winners with her story of the journey of a young cannibal through the deep US and in search of herself. And that the critics —except those from his country— had left some painful bite, which seemed to weigh down the film’s options.

The filmmaker adapts the homonymous novel by Camille DeAngelis, and follows a girl who is left alone with her terrifying drive towards human flesh and with all the ghosts that assail her. Hunting for answers on the road, she comes across other “eaters” like her. It is true that the film is well filmed: the problem is that it wastes such an intriguing premise, and becomes a somewhat canonical story. Although for Guadagnino Bones and All talk about love and of identity. It is clear that the jury agreed with him and the camera with him. “Thank you for believing that there is a place in the world for monsters,” Guadagnino told the jury. And he dedicated the award to Jafar Panahi, Mohammad Rasoulof and Mostafa Aleahmad, the three Iranian creators recently jailed in their country. “Long live subversion and long live cinema,” added the creator.

The first of the three also received an award at the gala, just before. Because the Iranian government believes that Panahi is engaged in propaganda against the regime, and for this reason they have sentenced him to six years in prison. The Venice festival, on the other hand, considers that he makes extraordinary cinema, so much so that it has awarded him the special jury prize for his latest film, Not Bears. The creator, locked up in the Evin detention center, was unable to collect the award. In addition to freedom, then, they have deprived him of such a glorious moment. Two of his interpreters collected the award. But the repression of the ayatollahs could not prevent the film from reaching the Show, you will fall in love with the critics and, finally, also to the jury. In the feature, Panahi also plays himself and reflects on the strict control of the State. That is to say, a double victory for the director. And Poitras also dedicated his Golden Lion to the Iranian.

Cate Blanchett’s face is unmistakable. But when she starts Tar the performer is able to disappear behind her character. The public only sees Lydia Tár, a masterful conductor: she discovers her talent, her firm conviction and, little by little, her shadows. Inevitably, Blanchett received the Volpi Cup for best actress. There shouldn’t be a shot of Todd Field’s movie, present in the installment of her, without her. And in all of them she captures looks and astonishment. Years ago the Australian dreamed of receiving, one day, a role in German and in Berlin. Field finally arrived with it, and much more: the director says that he wrote the script just for her. If Blanchett had said no, she maintains that she would not have filmed. But the actress accepted, she learned the language and even to lead an orchestra, she spent sleepless nights working on her role.

Luckily, moviegoers would say: because the film offers a very solid portrait of creative tension, where social networks, abuse of power and cancellation culture are mixed. An interpretation so sensational that it even sabotaged the film, in some way. Blanchett’s award seemed mandatory, which prevented Tar will aspire to the Golden Lion, by the internal regulations of the Mostra. Among so many merits, one more: competition. Both Ana de Armas, for her portrait of Marilyn Monroe in Blondeby Andrew Dominik, as Trace Lysette, the lonely transsexual from Monica, by Andrea Pallaoro, could have deserved the prize. His only problem was running into Blanchett. “I want to thank whoever makes art and puts her ego aside to create something magnificent. Todd [Field]you are one of the few capable of doing it”, affirmed the actress.

Colin Farrell’s win with the Volpi Cup for Best Actor proved two things: that the performer does a terrific job in Banshees by Inisherinof Martin McDonagh. And that he does not stop chaining important projects, so much so that he was not at the gala and connected from Los Angeles. The filmmaker collected the award in his place. Farrell beats the favorite Brendan Fraser, who was leading the pools, but there are powerful arguments to understand the jury: the interpreter plays a man who suddenly loses his best friend. “I don’t like you anymore,” the other lets out, simply. And Farrell composes a master class of silences, pain, disbelief, tenderness and even humor. Both he and Brendan Gleeson, in the skin of his new best enemy, are one of the pillars that supports the film. Although the film has much more to offer. As proof, the other award he received, for McDonaghfor the best script.

The award for the filmmaker was the same as five years ago, for Three billboards outside. But the playwright and director can smile for more reasons: in 2017, the victory in Venice was the start of a journey that took his film to the Oscars. Nothing prevents history from repeating itself. And, in addition, all the critics surrendered to his new film, even more than five years ago. Because McDonagh maintains his virtues: narrative pulse, fascinating characters, deep background issues. And it improves his traditional flaws: the tendency of his scripts to try to chain one brilliant phrase after another is reduced here. In Banshees by Inisherin there is more pause, emotion, to talk about toxic and stubborn masculinity or the stupidity of conflicts.

Argentina, 1985by Santiago Mitre, had to settle for the award given by the International Federation of Film Critics (FIPRESCI). Although perhaps the main victory is having achieved that for the first time the great Argentine cinema recounts the so-called Juicio de las Juntas, the process of the nine leaders of the dictatorship that terrified the country between 1976 and 1983. Mitre, in addition, takes to house the memory of the three applause that the film received at the screening for the press: after the final harangue of prosecutor Julio Strassera, with the famous “never again”; after conviction; and, of course, before the title credits.

Chilean filmmaker Fernando Guzzoni won the award for best screenplay in the Horizontes section for Whitey. And the Brazilian Pedro Harres received the Grand Jury Prize in the virtual reality category for From the Main Square. He was applauded when he went on stage to collect the award, like all winners. But he got an even bigger ovation with the final sentence of his speech: “We are all anti-fascists”. Perhaps it was the only thing of the night that he agreed with the entire Mostra.