Spain’s Pedro Almodovar won Venice’s Golden Lion award Saturday for his pro-euthanasia film "The Room Next Door”, with the acting prizes going to Nicole Kidman and Frenchman Vincent Lindon. The female friendship end-of-life film starring Tilda Swinton and Julianne Moore was Almodovar’s first English-language feature-length film. In the film — which like many of Almodovar’s hinges on strong female characters — Swinton plays a war correspondent suffering from terminal cancer. She asks her friend, played by Moore, to be at her side when she takes her own life.
"I believe saying goodbye to this world cleanly and with dignity is a fundamental right of every human being,” Almodovar told the audience after accepting his award. "It is not a political issue, but a human one.” He acknowledged that "this right goes against any religion or creed that has God as the only source of life”.
"I would ask practitioners of any creed to respect and not intervene in individual decisions in this regard,” said the prolific director, whose films in recent years have considered themes of death or physical decline. President of the jury, French actor Isabelle Huppert, said the film tackled important issues thoughtfully and without melodrama. She paid tribute, too, to the performances of the two lead actors. Almodovar was honored by Venice with a career achievement award five years ago.
‘My heart is broken’
Kidman was awarded the best actress award for her fearless turn as a CEO who has an affair with an intern in the erotic thriller "Babygirl”, but she was unable to collect the prize following the sudden death of her mother. "My heart is broken,” said the Australian actress in a statement read onstage on her behalf by the film’s Dutch director, Halina Reijn. "I’m in shock, and I have to go to my family. But this award is for her. She shaped me, she guided me, and she made me,” she said.
Kidman was praised by critics during the 10-day festival for her no-holds-barred performance in the sexually explicit film about female desire and power relationships. Veteran French actor Vincent Lindon won the best actor award for "The Quiet Son”, in which he plays a single father struggling to prevent his teenage son from being swept up in far-right extremism.
He won against well-received performances from former Bond actor Daniel Craig in "Queer” and Adrien Brody in "The Brutalist”. The Grand Jury Prize, considered a runner-up to the Golden Lion, went to Italian film "Vermiglio” from director Maura Delpero, which dealt with the effects of World War Two on an isolated mountain village.