Venice: Elisa's Jury of One

Elisa Giudici reporting from Venice...

[EDITOR'S NOTE: this was written shortly before the awards were handed so these are Elisa's feelings rather than comments on the winners.]

May el-Toukhy's WOMAN UNKNOWN won the Golden Lion but will it receive the same honor from Elisa's Jury of One?

Overall Festival Impressions

What a year to remember 2026 was for the oldest film festival in the world: arguably the best edition I have witnessed since I first attended with a press pass ten years ago, and the first in a very long time in which (helped by a particularly weak Cannes selection) Alberto Barbera was finally able to surpass Venice's natural competitor. In terms of overall cinematic quality, Venice eventually surpassed Cannes after years of trying to do so...

The competition itself was packed with so many strong contenders for the Golden Lion that predictions are proving unusually difficult. The question isn't so much who will win for lack of strong contenders, as what kind of Golden Lion the jury will favor among the many above-average titles that could deservedly win. There are more overtly political choices and some exceptionally strong auteurist ones to pick from. Looking at the composition of the jury (relatively few actors and several members with a more critical or cinephile sensibility), this could finally favor the kind of bold artistic choice we have been missing for years. There are also a couple of more "neutral" titles that could emerge as perfect third options if the jury splits into opposing camps, each vetoing the other's favorites. Reading the final press predictions, it's clear that there are at least four or five films that could deservedly win the Golden Lion.

In the press room, there was vocal outrage over POSSIBLE LOVE missing out on the Golden Lion.

Personal Favorites

Lee Chang-dong's Possible Love is such a cinematic achievement that it stands a couple of steps above even the best movies of this Venice, and of this year. I'm tempted to call it a masterpiece and leave it at that: ten years of work well spent by its director, resulting in a film that tackles so many themes with extraordinary control and features writing so precise that even the smallest detail earns its place in this 164-minute exploration of class conflict (or perhaps the impossibility of contact between classes?) and marital love in contemporary Korea. It's incredible that after Parasite and No Other Choice, two recent Korean films working in similar thematic territory, there is an even better one.

Dau is nothing short of a miracle: the kind of bold, immersive, uncompromising auteur cinema that reminded many people of The Brutalist — but make it Soviet, and even more grandiose. It's controversial because of the circumstances of its making, because it is so radical in its conception of cinema as something absolute and real in its immersive experience on set. But there are gigantic sequences here that simply leave you in awe. There is also something miraculous about encountering cinema so completely invested in its own mission, so far removed from contemporary production logic and the compromises that define filmmaking today.

Nothing at Venice this year was more cinephile or uncompromising than Luca Guadagnino's seven-hour documentary about Bernardo Bertolucci: his maestro, his favorite director, his friend. Guadagnino is protagonist, storyteller and center of a meticulous analysis of Bertolucci's career that took years, continents and countless interviews to make, but quickly turns into a joyful, witty and passionate conversation about everything related to cinema: movies, criticism, cinephilia. What a joy it was to be his hostage while watching Joie de Vivre. The final three minutes are an absolute masterclass and an incredible demonstration of Guadagnino's intimate understanding of Bertolucci, but the seven hours preceding them are themselves a spontaneous deep dive into cinema. James Gray's answers alone to his friend Luca's provocative questions about Bertolucci are worth the running time. It's Guadagnino inviting cinephiles onto the sofa, kicking off his shoes and talking about movies with people who have devoted their lives to cinema.

Wild Horse Nine and A Good Little Soldier are perhaps the perfect synthesis of the kind of movie that defined this competition: filmmakers returning to the kind of film they know best, but elevating it to such a level of perfection(particularly in the writing, even more than the direction) that you can't help but cheer for them.

Both Maggie Gyllenhaal's jury and Elisa picked NAZA for their Special Jury Prize.

Jury Of One - If I had chosen the awards

• Golden Lion: Possible Love
• Grand Jury Prize: Dau
• Special Jury Prize: Naza
• Best Director: Ilya Khrzhanovsky, Dau
• Best Screenplay: A Good Little Soldier
• Best Actor: John Malkovich, Wild Horse Nine
• Best Actress: Vanessa Scalera, The Fire That Burns Inside

Which of these films are you most anticipating and what auteur do you want to see win the Golden Lion in the future?