Golden_Lion_Award

Golden Lion

Golden Lion

Highest prize awarded at the Venice Film Festival

This article is about the film award. For other uses, see Golden Lion (disambiguation).

The Golden Lion (Italian: Leone d'oro) is the highest prize given to a film at the Venice Film Festival. The prize was introduced in 1949 by the organizing committee and is now regarded as one of the film industry's most prestigious and distinguished prizes.[1] In 1970, a second Golden Lion was introduced; this is an honorary award for people who have made an important contribution to cinema.

Quick Facts Location, Country ...

The prize was introduced in 1949 as the Golden Lion of Saint Mark (which was one of the best known symbols of the ancient Republic of Venice).[2] In 1954, the prize was permanently named Golden Lion. Previously, the equivalent prize was the Gran Premio Internazionale di Venezia (Grand International Prize of Venice), awarded in 1947 and 1948. Before that, from 1934 until 1942, the highest awards were the Coppa Mussolini (Mussolini Cup) for Best Italian Film and Best Foreign Film. The Nazi film Jud Süß (Suss, the Jew), an Antisemitic propaganda film made at the behest of Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels, won the festival's top award in 1940.[3][4][5][6]

History

Golden Lion prize trophy
Roberto Rossellini and Mario Monicelli winning the Golden Lion in 1959 for General Della Rovere and The Great War respectively.

The prize awarded as the Golden Lion was in 1949. Previously, the equivalent prize was the Gran Premio Internazionale di Venezia (Grand International Prize of Venice), awarded in 1947 and 1948. No Golden Lions were awarded between 1969 and 1979. According to the Biennale's official website, this hiatus was a result of the 1968 Lion being awarded to the radically experimental Die Artisten in der Zirkuskuppel: Ratlos; the website says that the awards "still had a statute dating back to the fascist era and could not side-step the general political climate. Sixty-eight produced a dramatic fracture with the past".[7] Fourteen French films have been awarded the Golden Lion, more than that of any other nation. However, there is considerable geographical diversity in the winners. Eight American filmmakers have won the Golden Lion, with awards for John Cassavetes and Robert Altman (both times the awards were shared with other winners who tied), as well as Ang Lee (Brokeback Mountain was the first winning US film not to tie), Darren Aronofsky, Sofia Coppola, Todd Phillips, Chloé Zhao, and Laura Poitras.

Although prior to 1980, only three of 21 winners were of non-European origin, since the 1980s, the Golden Lion has been presented to a number of Asian filmmakers, particularly in comparison to the Cannes Film Festival's top prize, the Palme d'Or, which has only been awarded to five Asian filmmakers since 1980. The Golden Lion, by contrast, has been awarded to ten Asians during the same time period, with two of these filmmakers winning it twice. Ang Lee won the Golden Lion twice within three years during the 2000s, once for an American film and once for a Chinese-language film. Zhang Yimou has also won twice. Other Asians to win the Golden Lion since 1980 include Jia Zhangke, Hou Hsiao-hsien, Tsai Ming-liang, Trần Anh Hùng, Takeshi Kitano, Kim Ki-duk, Jafar Panahi, Mira Nair, and Lav Diaz. Russian filmmakers have also won the Golden Lion several times, including since the end of the USSR.

Still, to date 33 of the 54 winners were European men (including Soviet/Russian winners). Since 1949, only seven women have ever won the Golden Lion for directing: Margarethe von Trotta, Agnès Varda, Mira Nair, Sofia Coppola, Chloé Zhao, Audrey Diwan, and Laura Poitras (though in 1938, German director Leni Riefenstahl won the Festival when its highest award was the Coppa Mussolini).

In 2019, Joker became the first movie based on original comic book characters to win the prize.[8]

Golden Lion

The following films received the Golden Lions or the major awards of the Venice Film Festival:[9]

More information Year, English Title ...
Notes
§ Denotes unanimous win

Multiple Winners

Four directors have won the award twice:

Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement

Main article: Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement
Marcello Mastroianni receiving the prize in 1990
Steven Spielberg receiving the prize from Gillo Pontecorvo in 1993
Martin Scorsese receiving the prize from Monica Vitti, 1995
Omar Sharif receiving the prize in 2003
More information Year, Winner(s) ...

See also

References

  1. [1]
    "25 Must-See Films That Won the Venice Film Festival". IndieWire. 2018. Retrieved 2019-10-08.
  2. [2]
    "Biennale Cinema History of the Venice Film Festival: The Forties and Fifties". La Biennale di Venezia. 2008. Retrieved 2008-05-28.
  3. [3]
    Friedländer, Saul (2008). The years of extermination: Nazi Germany and the Jews, 1939-1945 (First Harper Perennial ed.). New York London Toronto Sydney New Delhi Auckland: Harper Perennial. p. 100. ISBN 978-0-06-093048-6.
  4. [4]
    Kahn, Lothar (1975). Insight and action: the life and work of Lion Feuchtwanger. Rutherford, N.J: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press. ISBN 978-0-8386-1314-6.
  5. [5]
    says, Donald Link (2023-09-22). "Jud Suss: The Film That Fueled the Holocaust". Warfare History Network. Retrieved 2024-03-27.
  6. [6]
    "Collections Search - United States Holocaust Memorial Museum". collections.ushmm.org. Retrieved 2024-03-27.
  7. [7]
    "Biennale Cinema History of the Venice Film Festival: The Sixties and Seventies". La Biennale di Venezia. 2008. Retrieved 2008-05-28.
  8. [8]
    Donaldson, Kayleigh (September 11, 2019). "Joker's Insane Venice Film Festival Win Explained". Screen Rant. Retrieved April 25, 2020.
  9. [9]
    "Golden Lions and major awards of the Venice Film Festival". labiennale.org. Archived from the original on 7 June 2017. Retrieved 31 December 2019.
  10. [10]
    Friedländer, Saul (2008). The years of extermination: Nazi Germany and the Jews, 1939-1945 (First Harper Perennial ed.). New York London Toronto Sydney New Delhi Auckland: Harper Perennial. ISBN 978-0-06-093048-6.
  11. [11]
    "14. Mostra Internazionale d'Arte Cinematografica di Venezia". La Biennale di Venezia (in Italian). Archivio Storico delle Arti Contemporanee. Retrieved April 23, 2020.
  12. [12]
    Zacharek, Stephanie (September 5, 2013). "Venice update: Kelly Reichardt's Night Moves, James Franco's Child of God, and more". LA Weekly. Retrieved April 5, 2020.
  13. [13]
    Roos, Fred (Spring 1957). "Venice Film Festival, 1956" (PDF). The Quarterly of Film Radio and Television. 11 (3). University of California Press: 249. doi:10.2307/1209744. JSTOR 1209744. Retrieved April 5, 2020. The report began with a few sentences of praise for each of the 14 films [sic], and then selected the Japanese Harp of Burma and the Spanish Calle Mayor as being particularly outstanding. Since the jury was unable to decide which of these two films was the superior, it had decided not to award a grand prix "St. Mark Golden Lion" this year.
  14. [14]
    "30. Mostra Internazionale d'Arte Cinematografica di Venezia". La Biennale di Venezia (in Italian). Archivio Storico delle Arti Contemporanee. Retrieved April 23, 2020.
  15. [15]
    "Venice Film Festival History 1932-2019: The 70s". La Biennale di Venezia. 7 December 2017. Retrieved April 23, 2020.
  16. [16]
    "The Post-war period: 1948 - 1973". La Biennale di Venezia. 12 April 2017. Retrieved April 23, 2020.
  17. [17]
    "Venice Film Fete in Quest of Glamour". The New York Times. August 28, 1979. Retrieved April 24, 2020. Carlo Lizzani, leftist director and the festival's new president, has not so far managed to restore the "Golden Lion" awards presented at Venice until 1968
  18. [18]
    Vivarelli, Nick (2020-07-20). "Venice Film Festival to Honor Tilda Swinton, Ann Hui With Golden Lions for Career Achievement". Variety. Retrieved 2020-07-23.
  19. [19]
    "Venezia 79. Leone d'oro alla carriera a Catherine Deneuve: "È una gioia"". La Repubblica. 1 June 2022. Retrieved 1 June 2022.
  20. [20]
    "Venezia Cinema: Leone d'Oro alla carriera a Paul Schrader". Agenzia Nazionale Stampa Associata. 4 May 2022. Retrieved 4 May 2022.
  21. [21]
    "A Liliana Cavani il Leone d'oro alla carriera dalla Mostra di Venezia". Corriere della Sera. 27 March 2023. Retrieved 27 March 2023.
  22. [22]
    "Biennale Cinema 2023 | Director Liliana Cavani and actor Tony Leung Chiu-wai Golden Lions for Lifetime Achievement". La Biennale di Venezia. 2023-03-27. Retrieved 2023-07-25.
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