Venice Film Festival 2006 Winners
September 10th, 2006 by Andre Soares
"Thank you, Tony Blair, for timing your political disintegration with the release of our film." That’s The Queen’s screenwriter Peter Morgan, winner of the Best Screenplay Award at this year’s Venice Film Festival. In The Queen, which was directed by Stephen Frears, Coppa Volpi for Best Actress winner Helen Mirren plays Queen Elizabeth II, at odds with the Blair government following the death of Princess Diana. (For those into betting on future Oscar nominees, Mirren is a cinch — and she has a very good chance of actually winning the award.)
The surprise Golden Lion winner was Jia Zhang-Ke’s Sanxia Haoren / Still Life. A late entry at the festival, Still Life portrays the plight of the people of Fengjie, a village destroyed by the building of the Three Gorges dam. More than 1 million Chinese have been forced to relocate because of the dam.
Another surprise winner was Ben Affleck, who was awarded the Coppa Volpi for Best Actor for his performance as actor George Reeves in the film noir Hollywoodland, about the death of TV’s Superman.
The Best Director was 84-year-old veteran Alain Resnais for Coeurs / Private Fears in Public Places, which had been one of the top contenders for the Golden Lion. Resnais’ Last Year in Marienbad had won the Golden Lion back in 1961.
Mahamat-Saleh Haroun’s Daratt, about the lingering effects of Chad’s civil war, took the Special Jury Prize.
The Great Italian Hope, Gianni Amelio’s La stella che non c’è / The Missing Star, failed to win a single major award.
Venice Film Festival 2006 Winners
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