21 films vie for Venice festival’s top prize

A heart-wrenching docudrama about the Gaza war, a wrestling-themed love story starring Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and a darkly satirical South Korean thriller are among 21 films vying for the top prize at the Venice Film Festival on Saturday.

After 10 days of star-packed premieres and red-carpet thrills, the festival wraps up with the jury headed by American director Alexander Payne unveiling the best picture prize during a closing ceremony from 1700 GMT.

Measured by its impact on audiences, tear-jerking “The Voice of Hind Rajab” is a strong contender for the Golden Lion and would make a political statement against Israel’s ongoing siege and bombardment of Gaza.

It is a dramatised re-telling of the ordeal of Hind Rajab Hamada, a five-year-old Palestinian girl trapped in a car with her dead relatives in January 2024 after they came under fire while fleeing Israeli troops in Gaza City.

The Guardian newspaper’s chief critic wrote that there was “no doubt about which movie has set the Venice film festival ablaze — it is this one, from Tunisian film-maker Kaouther Ben Hania”.

Ben Hania, who is also French, uses the real recordings of Hind Rajab pleading with rescuers to come to help her, as night and Israeli tanks close in on the wreckage of the vehicle where she is hiding.

The film has attracted stars Brad Pitt and Joaquin Phoenix as well as Oscar-winning directors Jonathan Glazer (“The Zone of Interest”) and Mexico’s Alfonso Cuaron (“Roma”) who joined as executive producers.

After its premiere, where it was given a hand-bruising 23-minute standing ovation, “my producers, including the well-known American names Brad Pitt and Joaquin Phoenix, had their mailboxes flooded with thousands and thousands” of hate messages, Ben Hania told AFP.

The same message, sent over and over, was “super intimidating”, she said.

– Major platform –

The Gaza conflict has been a major talking point at this year’s festival, where thousands of protesters marched to the entrance of the event on Saturday.

An open letter calling on festival organisers to denounce the Israeli government over its offensive in Gaza has been signed by around 2,000 cinema insiders, according to the organisers.

Critics have been broadly positive about the strong stable of films showcased in Venice this year, with the Italian city an important launch platform for big-budget international productions and arthouse films looking for distributors.

Several previous winners of the festival’s prestigious Golden Lion have gone on to Oscar glory, such as “Nomadland” or “Joker”.

Among the contenders to succeed last year’s winner — Pedro Almodovar’s “The Room Next Door” — is “The Smashing Machine” starring Dwayne Johnson, a film about late 1990s mixed martial-arts (MMA) pioneer Mark Kerr.

The Hollywood Reporter called the film by Benny Safdie a “compellingly gritty and offbeat biopic”, while Johnson has been tipped for a best actor award in what is arguably a first serious dramatic role for the action-film hero.

The other frontrunners include South Korean director Park Chan-wook’s “No Other Choice”, about a veteran paper company employee who is laid off and decides to kill off potential competitors for a new job.

Greek director Yorgos Lanthimos showcased a widely praised and darkly comic thriller, “Bugonia”, which reunites him with his favourite actor, double Oscar-winner Emma Stone.

The duo, working together for a fifth feature, are hoping to repeat their successful formula from 2023 when “Poor Things” nabbed Venice’s Golden Lion.

Mexican director Guillermo del Toro’s big-budget adaptation of “Frankenstein” for Netflix also drew mostly positive reviews.

Oscar-winning American thriller specialist Kathryn Bigelow, making her first film in eight years, unveiled White House-based political drama “A House of Dynamite” about a fictional nuclear attack on the United States.

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