Venice Festivals by Year: Prizes, Juries, Favorites   Other Fests: Cannes / Chicago Stay tuned for more yearly indexes!  Browse Films by Title / Year / Reviews Nick's Flick Picks Home / Blog / E-Mail		Jurors: Alfonso Cuarón (president), Elizabeth Banks, Emmanuel Carrère, Nuri Bilge Ceylan, Hou Hsiao-hsien, Diane Kruger, Francesco Munzi, Pawel Pawlikowski, Lynne Ramsay     Golden Lion: From Afar, Venezuela/Mexico, dir. Lorenzo Vigas Grand Jury Prize: Anomalisa, USA, dirs. Duke Johnson and Charlie Kaufman Special Jury Prize: Frenzy, Turkey, dir. Emin Alper Best Director: The Clan, Pablo Trapero Best Actress: Per amor vostro, Valeria Golino Best Actor: L'Hermine, Fabrice Luchini Marcello Mastroianni Award: Beasts of No Nation, Abraham Attah Best Screenplay: L'Hermine, Christian Vincent FIPRESCI/International     Critics Prize: Blood of My Blood, Italy, dir. Marco Bellocchio SIGNIS Award: Behemoth, China, dir. Zhao Liang Venice Horizons Award: Free in Deed, USA/New Zealand, dir. Jake Mahaffy Future Film Festival Digital Award: Anomalisa, USA, dirs. Duke Johnson and Charlie Kaufman Competition Films I Have Seen: Ranked in order of preference   My Golden Lion Francofonia (France/Germany/Netherlands, dir. Aleksandr Sokurov) - Louvre, the End of History. Witty, moving essay on doomed objects surviving, enemies collaborating, time as tight knot. Heart of a Dog (USA, dir. Laurie Anderson) - Griefs for dog, nation, parent, partner unpacked with warmth, lucidity, and weirdness. Not a funeral. A passageway. Frenzy (Turkey, dir. Emin Alper) - Formally stunning mitosis of one suspense thriller into two, enigmatically related. Two parts Audiard, one Don't Look Now. Beasts of No Nation (USA, dir. Cary Joji Fukunaga) - Value, impact hard to deny but formal and narrative storytelling are a little crude. Young Attah is a find. The Endless River (South Africa, dir. Oliver Hermanus) - Strikingly shot. Taps a rich seam of region-specific tensions and story traditions. Maybe exploits them a bit. From Afar (Venezuela/Mexico, dir. Lorenzo Vigas) - Study of two men's erratic behavior, suggestive but not all that plausible. Interesting debut but Lion seems generous. A Bigger Splash (Italy/France, dir. Luca Guadagnino) - Highsmith meets Hockney meets Laurel Canyon meets a crazy person. Messy and strenuous, even while lounging around. Anomalisa (USA, dirs. Duke Johnson and Charlie Kaufman) - Could summon no enthusiasm. The self-pity of Kaufman's men is usually ballasted by much more creative detail or insight. Blood of My Blood (Italy, dir. Marco Bellocchio) - My astigmatism around high-theatrical Italian melodrama persists. Less crude than Vincere but ideas seem simple? Looking for Grace (Australia, dir. Sue Brooks) - Tonally odd. At early best, augurs Short Cuts. Often settles for Safety of Objects. Then its shaky, nervy twist. The Danish Girl (UK, dir. Tom Hooper) - Literally nothing about Hooper's filmmaking is well-suited to evoking complex internal shifts. And unfortunately... Sidebar Selections I Have Seen: Ranked in order of preference   In Jackson Heights (TIFF Docs; USA, dir. Frederick Wiseman) - Most democratic US community abounds with sidewalk pedagogy and filibusters. Everyone tries to save everyone. Neon Bull (Brazil/Uruguay/Netherlands, dir. Gabriel Mascaro) - Disarming blend of muscle and tenderness, implying steady surges of violence and desire but refusing any standard route. Spotlight (USA, dir. Tom McCarthy) - Casually consummate acting. Nimble editing and storytelling. Deep journalism as flawed heroism, as slow digestive tract. As I Open My Eyes (Tunisia, dir. Leyla Bouzid) - Sonorous, trenchant portrait of an artist as a young woman, riding sharp lines between petulance and dissidence. Mustang (Turkey/Germany/France, dir. Deniz Gamze Ergüven) - Makes you crave a looser, freer world for these girls; then again, you wish the movie itself were more supple and finessed. Underground Fragrance (China, dir. Pengfei) - No points for sniffing out a Tsai Ming-Liang prot?g?, but this tale of ephemeral encounter has its own voice. Everest (USA, dir. Baltasar Kormákur) - Not being cute when I say it's too crowded, with bigger plans than it can execute. Weirdly impersonal. Almost interesting. Black Mass (USA, dir. Scott Cooper) - Third data-point seals it: Cooper makes handsome shots but flails at POV, gives actors confidence but needs more nuance. Films in the Main Competition: Ranked in order of interest; more on this year's lineup here (opens in a new window)   The Clan, Argentina, dir. Pablo Trapero Behemoth, China, dir. Zhao Liang Remember, Canada, dir. Atom Egoyan Marguerite, France, dir. Xavier Giannoli L'Hermine, France, dir. Christian Vincent The Wait, Italy, dir. Piero Messina Rabin, The Last Day, Israel, dir. Amos Gitai 11 Minutes, Poland, dir. Jerzy Skolimowski Equals, USA, dir. Drake Doremus For Your Sake, Italy, dir. Giuseppe M. Guadino Sidebar Films I'm Curious to See: Listed alphabetically   Afternoon, Taiwan, dir. Tsai Ming-liang Bleak Street, Mexico, dir. Arturo Ripstein The Childhood of a Leader, USA, dir. Brady Corbet The Daughter, Australia, dir. Simon Stone Early Winter, Australia/Canada, dir. Michael Rowe The Event, Netherlands/Belgium, dir. Sergei Loznitsa Free in Deed, USA/New Zealand, dir. Jake Mahaffy Janis: Little Girl Blue, USA, dir. Amy Berg Madame Courage, Algeria/France, dir. Merzak Allouache Man Down, USA, dir. Dito Montiel Mr. Six, China, dir. Guan Hu A War, Denmark, dir. Tobias Lindholm Trackbacks: Permalink Venice Page 2015 Home Blog E-Mail