The Venice Film Festival will award the Golden Lion after a star-studded competition

Director Peter Weir (L) poses with actor Ethan Hawke after receiving the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement during a ceremony at the 81st International Venice Film Festival at the Venice Lido on September 2, 2024. | Photo credit: Alberto Pizzoli

The Venice Film Festival concludes on Saturday with a winner to be awarded the prestigious Golden Lion award.

From US director Brady Corbett’s “The Brutalist” tracking the tortured artistic path of a Holocaust survivor to “A Room Next Door”, veteran Spanish writer Pedro Almodovar’s late-life female friendship picture, the choices are many – a film without any considered a precursor.

Stars flock to the glamorous Lido this year for the 81st edition of the world’s oldest film festival, whose winners often go on to Oscar glory.

Venice’s red carpet has been graced this season by the likes of Lady Gaga, starring alongside Joaquin Phoenix in the sequel to Todd Phillips’ antihero “Joker,” or George Clooney and Brad Pitt, whose action comedy “Wolves” will be streamed. Apple TV+, premiered out of competition.

Pundits have already singled out “The Brutalist” and “Queer” — an adaptation of the short novel by Beat Generation author William Burroughs directed by Italy’s Luca Guadagnino — as films to watch for both their cinematic ambitions and lead performances. Actors Adrien Brody and Daniel Craig, respectively.

Angelina Jolie is in contention for the best actress award for her tour-de-force performance as opera diva Maria Callas in Pablo Lerrein’s “Maria,” as is Nicole Kidman for “Babygirl,” an erotic thriller that requires onscreen bravado for graphic sex scenes. The actress is said to be “liberating”.

The jury, led by French actress Isabelle Huppert, has its work cut out for best actor, with Brody in “The Brutalist” and Craig in “Queer” both among the festival’s most transformative.

Five-time James Bond actor Craig is already predicted to be a leading Oscar contender next March for his role as William Lee, a lonely, heavy-drinking gay writer in 1940s Mexico City whose unrequited love for a young man leaves him reeling. and a drug-fueled road trip through South America.

Craig said the role allowed him a haven full of experience and passion.

TOPSHOT – Actor Daniel Craig and his wife actress Rachel Weisz kiss as they attend the red carpet screening of the movie ‘Queer’ presented in competition at the 81st International Venice Film Festival at Venice Lido, September 3, 2024. (Photo by Alberto Pizzoli/AFP) | Photo credit: Alberto Pizzoli

“If I wrote myself a part and ticked off all the things I wanted to do, it would fill them all,” Craig told reporters before the film’s premiere.

The voice was heard

Films at the festival – which saw American actress Sigourney Weaver and Australian director Peter Weir accept lifetime achievement awards – didn’t shy away from difficult subjects, whether contemporary or historical.

Abortion (“April”), white supremacy (“The Order”), the Mafia (“Sicilian Letters”) and enforced disappearances and murders during Brazil’s military dictatorship (“I’m Still Here”) were among the subjects of competition for the films. golden lion

A number of films have explored war and its devastating effects, whether documentaries on the war in Ukraine or the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, with two Italian features focusing on the two world wars of the last century.

Most notable was “Russians at War” by Russian-Canadian filmmaker Anastasia Trofimova, who went behind the Ukrainian battle lines with Russian soldiers.

“Russian soldiers are not someone whose voice is heard,” Trofimova told a news conference.

“This is my attempt to see people as people through the fog of war.”