The film, directed by Jim Jarmusch, details three stories of three families. “The Voice of Hind Rajab,” about a Palestinian girl in a car under fire by the Israeli military, won second place.
“Father Mother Sister Brother,” directed by Jim Jarmusch, was awarded the Golden Lion for best film at the 82nd Venice International Film Festival on Saturday by a competition jury led by the director Alexander Payne.
The film details three stories of three different families, focusing on adult siblings and their parents.
“Art does not have to address politics directly to be political,” Jarmusch said. “It can engender empathy and a connection between us, which is really the first step.” He also expressed his gratitude for the appreciation of “our quiet film.” An audience member cried out, “We love you, Jim!”
Each story in “Father Mother Sister Brother,” which Jarmusch also wrote, dramatizes a different relationship: a brother (Adam Driver) and sister (Mayim Bialik) who visit their aging father (Tom Waits); two sisters (Cate Blanchett and Vicky Krieps), also visiting their novelist mother (Charlotte Rampling); and twins (Indya Moore and Luka Sabbat) dealing with their late parents’ apartment.
The 21 features in the competition frequently reflected real-world tensions, including “The Voice of Hind Rajab,” Kaouther Ben Hania’s docudrama about a Palestinian girl in a car under fire by the Israeli military, and the emergency phone dispatchers trying to save her. The well-received film, which uses real recordings of the emergency calls, won the Silver Lion Grand Jury Prize.
During the awards, prize winners spoke at length in support of Palestinians in Gaza and against the horrors of war. And last Saturday, thousands of pro-Palestinian protesters gathered on the Lido, the island where the festival was held.
This year’s edition continued the festival’s run of starry casts, including Julia Roberts, Emma Stone, Oscar Isaac, George Clooney, Colman Domingo, Dwayne Johnson, Willem Dafoe, Chloë Sevigny, Jude Law, Amanda Seyfried, Andrew Garfield, Ayo Edebiri, Jesse Plemons, Emily Blunt, Lee Byung-hun and Jacob Elordi.
The festival opened with Paolo Sorrentino’s “La Grazia,” a tragicomedy about an Italian president at the end of his term. Other prominent films included “A House of Dynamite,” “Frankenstein,” “No Other Choice,” “Jay Kelly,” “The Wizard of the Kremlin,” “Dead Man’s Wire,” “After the Hunt,” “The Testament of Ann Lee,” “Cover-Up,” “In the Hand of Dante” and “Bugonia.”
The Silver Lion for best director was given to Benny Safdie for “The Smashing Machine,” a portrait of the mixed-martial-arts champion Mark Kerr (Dwayne Johnson). The Special Jury Prize was awarded to “Below the Clouds,” a black-and-white look at Naples and Mount Vesuvius, directed by Gianfranco Rosi, one of the few documentarians to have won the Golden Lion.
