After awarding this year’s Golden Lion for best film to Jim Jarmusch’s “Father Mother Sister Brother,” Venice Film Festival jury president Alexander Payne faced a flurry of questions from journalists about the decision. Many had expected Kaouther Ben Hania’s Gaza drama “The Voice of Hind Rajab,” which received a tearful 22-minute standing ovation at its premiere and was ultimately awarded the second-place grand jury prize, to be a shoo-in for the festival’s top award.
“That’s the unfair thing of being at a festival, is having to say this is better than that. It’s not,” Payne said diplomatically at a press conference following the awards ceremony on Saturday. “As a jury, we treasure both of those films equally, each for its own reason. And we wish both of those films a long and important life, and we hope that the support of the awards we’ve given tonight will help them, each in its own way.”
He continued: “Look, if we had voted the day before, the day later, it might have been different … As I say, we treasure and value and protect both films equally in our hearts. And if one had to receive one prize [over] the other, it’s for .000001% of having to make some kind of decision.”
Payne’s fellow jury members during this year’s festival included Oscar-nominated Brazilian actress and writer Fernanda Torres (“I’m Still Here”), prominent Iranian auteur Mohammad Rasoulof (“The Seed of the Sacred Fig”), Palme d’Or-winning Romanian director-writer-producer Cristian Mungiu (“4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days”), French director Stéphane Brizé (“Out of Season”), Italian director Maura Delpero (“Vermiglio”) and Chinese actor and producer Zhao Tao (“Caught by the Tides”).
Payne was then asked about a rumor floating around social media that one of his jurors had threatened to quit due to disagreements over the festival’s top prizes. He denied that this happened, saying: “One of my jurors threatened to quit? I did?! No, did someone threaten to quit? No. I think we know … not to believe everything we read online.”
See the full list of Venice Film Festival award winners here.
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