Almodóvar’s ‘The Room Next Door’ triumphs at the Venice Film Festival | Hollywood

VENICE – Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar’s first English-language film, “The Room Next Door,” which tackles the themes of euthanasia and climate change, won the prestigious Golden Lion award at the Venice Film Festival on Saturday.

Starring Tilda Swinton and Julianne Moore, the film received an 18-minute standing ovation when it premiered in Venice earlier this week, one of the longest on record.

Almodóvar is a darling of the festival circuit, receiving a lifetime achievement award at Venice in 2019 for his bold, irreverent and often funny Spanish-language films.

He also won an Oscar in the category of best foreign language film for his 1999 film “All About My Mother.”

Now 74, he has decided to try his hand at English, focusing his attention on questions of life, death and friendship. Speaking after receiving his award, he said euthanasia should not be blocked by politics or religion.

“I believe that saying goodbye to this world in a clean and dignified way is a fundamental right of every human being,” he said, speaking in Spanish.

He also thanked his two female stars for their performances.

“This award really belongs to them, it’s a film about two women and the two women are Julianne and Tilda,” she said.

Although “The Room Next Door” had been widely considered the winner, the second-place Silver Lion award came as a surprise, as it was awarded to Italian director Maura Delpero for her slow-paced drama set in the Italian Alps during World War II: “Vermiglio.”

Australian Nicole Kidman won best actress for her daring role in the erotic film “Babygirl,” in which she plays a strict CEO who jeopardizes her career and family by having a toxic romance with a young, manipulative intern.

Kidman was in Venice on Saturday but did not attend the awards ceremony after learning that her mother had died unexpectedly.

Frenchman Vincent Lindon was named best actor for “The Quiet Son,” a French-language current affairs drama about a family torn apart by far-right radicalism.

ROAD TO THE OSCARS

The award for best director went to American Brady Corbet for his three-and-a-half-hour film “The Brutalist,” shot on 70mm film and telling the epic story of a Hungarian Holocaust survivor played by Adrien Brody, who seeks to rebuild his life in the United States.

“We have the power to support each other and say to the Goliath corporations that are trying to pressure us: ‘No, it’s three and a half hours long and it’s 70mm,'” he told the audience on Saturday.

The festival marks the start of awards season and regularly features heavy favorites for the Oscars, with eight of the last 12 best director awards at the Oscars going to films that debuted in Venice.

The best screenplay award went to Murilo Hauser and Heitor Lorega for “I’m Still Here,” a film about Brazil’s military dictatorship, while the special jury prize went to the abortion drama “April,” by Georgian director Dea Kulumbegashvili.

Among the films that left Venice’s Lido island empty-handed was Todd Phillips’ “Joker: Folie à Deux,” starring Joaquin Phoenix and Lady Gaga, the sequel to his original “The Joker,” which took home the top prize here in 2019.

Luca Guadagnino’s “Queer,” starring Daniel Craig as a gay drug addict, and Pablo Larraín’s biopic of Maria Callas, starring Angelina Jolie as the celebrated Greek soprano, “Maria,” also received praise from critics but did not win any awards.

This year’s Venice jury was chaired by French actress Isabelle Huppert.

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