1st LD: "The Woman Who Left" wins Golden Lion at 73rd Venice Film Festival
Xinhua, September 11, 2016 Adjust font size:
"The Woman Who Left" by Filipino director Lav Diaz won the Golden Lion, the highest prize presented at the 73rd Venice International Film Festival which concluded here on Saturday evening.
The 228-minute drama tells the story of a former schoolteacher who was wrongly convicted and put behind bars for 30 years, and then, shocked by the reality of her homeland after leaving prison, decided to take revenge.
Diaz, born in 1958 in the municipality of Datu Paglas of the Philippines, is an acclaimed independent filmmaker and winner of several awards at other international film festivals.
The Silver Lion, or the Grand Jury Prize, went to American designer-turned-director Tom Ford for his second feature film "Nocturnal Animals," a thriller starring Amy Adams and Jake Gyllenhaal.
This year a total of 43 countries and regions participated in the festival. 20 feature films were chosen from the 2,901 films viewed to join the main competition Venezia 73, 19 for the Orizzonti section dedicated to indie films and emerging talents.
In addition, 14 short film, including seven documentaries, also competed in the Orizzonti section, while 18 feature films and two short films were screened out of competition. Endit