Venice Film Festival: Golden Lion goes to ‘Poor Things’

The Golden Lion of the Venice Film Festival goes to the film ‘Poor Things’ by the Greek director Giorgos Lanthimos. The jury announced this on Saturday evening. “Poor Things” is an experimental variation on the Frankenstein story starring American actress Emma Stone. Willem Dafoe and Mark Ruffalo also play other roles – and German actress Hanna Schygulla also makes a brief appearance.

The 50-year-old director Lanthimos is known for films such as ‘The Favorite – Intrigue and Madness’, ‘The Lobster’ and ‘The Killing of a Sacred Deer’.

In the grotesque fairy tale ‘Poor Things’, Stone plays a pregnant woman who commits suicide while fleeing her husband’s abuse. Scientist Godwin Baxter (Willem Dafoe) finds her corpse, inserts the brain of her unborn child and brings her back to life. She is now called Bella and has the mental age of a child, but is constantly developing.

The audience follows Bella as she learns to move and speak. She finally escapes the confines of Baxter’s home and learns about life through her travels. The people around her are both irritated and fascinated by her open-minded and sexually tolerant nature.

Other major awards at the film festival went to the American Cailee Spaeny for her role in ‘Priscilla’ (best actress), the American Peter Sarsgaard for his role in ‘Memory’ (best actor) and the Japanese director Ryusuke Hamaguchi, who received the prize Grand Jury Prize for his film “Evil Does Not Exist” (Japanese: “Aku wa sonzai shinai”).

The Venice Film Festival, which started on August 30, is one of the three most important in the world, alongside the Cannes Film Festival and the Berlinale. In this year’s competition, 23 works competed for prizes.

The prizes were awarded by an international jury. The chairman was the American director Damien Chazelle. (sda/dpa)