Venice Film Festival Winners: Jim Jarmusch’s ‘Father Mother Sister Brother’ Takes Golden Lion, Benny Safdie Gets Best Director for ‘Smashing Machine’

The Venice Film Festival has awarded the Golden Lion for best film to Jim Jarmusch’s “Father Mother Sister Brother,” a triptych of three different families and their dynamics. The Silver Lion for best director went to Benny Safdie for “The Smashing Machine,” while Gaza drama “The Voice of Hind Rajab” was awarded the Grand Jury prize.

Wearing his trademark sunglasses and a classy maroon suit, director Jarmusch accepted his award with a pitch-perfect “Oh shit.”

“As filmmakers,” he said, “we’re not motivated by competition, but this is something I truly appreciate.” He mentioned his love for Venice — “the city of Casanova, Vivaldi and Terence Hill” — and thanked the jury and audience for responding to “our quiet film.” He also shouted out to Benny Safdie’s speech when he accepted the best director award for “The Smashing Machine,” agreeing that “art does not have to address politics directly to be political. It can engender empathy which is the first step toward solving our problems.”

He concluded, to a hugely warm reception and at least one Italian lady shouting “We love you Jim!,” by recalling a speech given by Akira Kurosawa when accepting a lifetime achievement award from the Academy: “He said something like he was worried that still didn’t quite know how do it, and I have that same feeling, of learning all the time.”

As popular as Jarmusch’s film was on the ground (the Variety review said it was “imbued with [Jarmusch’s] trademark wry humor but also new notes of mellow, generous wisdom”), the conversation in the lead-up to the ceremony had largely revolved around another title. Kaouther Ben Hania’s “The Voice of Hind Rajab,” a drama recounting the real-life killing of a 5-year-old Palestinian girl (about which Variety‘s critic was somewhat more measured than many of the other raves), had been the subject of a lot of speculation as to its placement in the final awards rundown. In the event, Ben Hania’s film took the second-place grand jury prize and she delivered the fieriest speech of an evening during which it seemed that more recipients referred to Gaza — directly or indirectly — than did not.

After dedicating her win to the Palestinian Red Crescent and the other “heroes” in the first response teams in Gaza, Ben Hania said: “Hind’s voice was a cry for rescue the entire world could hear but no one answered. Her voice will continue to echo until accountability and justice is served. Cinema cannot bring her back nor can it erase the atrocity that was committed against her. But cinema can preserve her voice.”

After reminding the audience that “this is not only about memory but urgency. Hind’s mother and little brother are still in Gaza, their lives are still in danger. I urge the leaders of the world to save them,” she went on to read a message from Hind’s mother, who wrote: “There are many children still waiting for help.” Ben Hania then quoted Nelson Mandela’s statement that “our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians” and continued in uncompromising form: “This is not just Hind’s story, it is the story of a criminal Israeli regime that acts with impunity… May Hind rest in peace, may the eyes of her killers never sleep, and free Palestine.”

Safdie, best director winner for “The Smashing Machine” — which the Variety review called “a bracing, clear-eyed and laceratingly humane sports biopic —” began his acceptance speech with, “Please don’t play the music!” It was a reference to the rather trigger-happy use of an instrumental version of “I Dreamed a Dream” which cut off more than a few awardees, and not once but twice interrupted best actress winner Xin Zhilei (whose performance in Cai Shangjun’s “The Sun Rises on Us All” Variety described as “riveting.”) Safdie spoke of his Venice experience as “a dream come true. To be here, amongst the giants of the past and the giants of this year, it blows my mind.”

“We wanted to make this films as an exercise in radical empathy and empathy is more important than ever,” he continued, before practically interrupting himself with a tribute to his star, Dwayne Johnson. “And my God, Dwayne — my friend, my brother and partner — shoulder to shoulder, that’s what we said.”

The Italian winners included a widely fancied best actor award for local hero Toni Servillo for his lead performance in “La Grazia,” which Variety called “more understated than usual” for director Paolo Sorrentino. And previous Golden Lion winner Gianfranco Rosi must content himself this year with the special jury prize (the third place award) for his Vesuvius documentary “Below the Clouds,” which Variety describes admiringly as a “layered, rewarding study of modern living amid remnants of ancient history.”

The other main awards went to “At Work,” which won French director Valerie Donzelli and Gilles Marchand the best screenplay award and was described in a warm Variety review as “a quiet gem,” and to Luna Wedler, who won the Marcello Mastroianni Award for an emerging performer for her role in Ildikó Enyedi’s “Silent Friend,” a film Variety found “utterly enchanting.”

Finally, the Luigi De Laurentiis Award for best debut film, for which the jury was chaired by “Aftersun” helmer Charlotte Wells, went to “Short Summer” from the Giornate selection (this award can be given to a first feature from any section). Accepting the award, director Nastia Korkia eloquently highlighted the other major conflict of our times, saying: “This is the 1,291st day of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. I have never seen the war up close but for 1,291 days I feel its influence. Like radiation… it destroys society from within.” She continued, “I very much hope we will keep our eyes wide open and find the strength to stop the war.”

The full list of Venice Film Festival winners can be found below.