One Fassy, Several Cups.
Saturday, September 10, 2011 at 5:31PM 
Jose here.
Earlier today the 68th Venice Film Festival came to an end. Awards were given out to what seem to be some strange choices (gotta love when quriky jury members choose the most obscure people, no?)
with the Golden Lion (Best Picture) going to Alexander Sokurov's Faust.
Just yesterday, our awesome correspondent from Venice mentioned how people expected this one to win and yet it doesn't even show up in the critical consensus. That must've been a dark horse if there ever was one. Apologies to the actual Dark Horse which came out empty handed.
The complete list of winners:
Golden Lion - Faust (Alexander Sokurov, Russia)
Silver Lion for Best Director - Shangjun Cai for Ren shan ren hai/People Mountain People Sea (China)
Special jury Prize - Terraferma (Emanuele Crialese, Italy)
Volpi Cup for Best Actor - Michael Fassbender for Shame (Steve McQueen, UK)
Volpi Cup for Best Actress - Deannie Yip for Tae jie (A simple life) (Ann Hui, China, Hong Kong)
Osella Award for Best Screenplay - Yorgos Lanthimos and Efthimis Filippou for Alps (Greece)
Osella Award for Best Technical Contribution - Robbie Ryan's Cinematogrpahy from Wuthering Heights (Andrea Arnold, UK)
Marcello Mastroianni Award for Best Acting Newcomer - Shôta Sometani in Himizu (Sion Sono, Japan)
Perhaps the most significant thing about this festival, besides having given Fassy his first big acting award (he's just been around in the maninstream for a couple of years but it feels like decades, no?) might be that it probably won't line up in any way with Oscar. After all, when's the last time the little golden guy paid any attention to a two and a half hour long reimagining of Faust with Russian subtitles? In the festival's long history only two Golden Lion winners got into the Oscars' Best Picture lineup - Brokeback Mountain and Atlantic City - both of them lost. The most "influential" awards here might be the Volpi Cups; in the past decade we've seen the likes of Julianne Moore (Far From Heaven), Helen Mirren (The Queen), Imelda Staunton (Vera Drake) and Colin Firth (A Single Man) repeat their nominations during the long awards season.
Dear readers across the ocean, should we be on the lookout for any of these movies when they are released here? How did you like our Venice coverage this year? How many acting awards did you think Fassy had won by now?
Reader Comments (13)
I'm still holding hope that at least Michael Fassbender can build momentum with this and 'A Dangerous Method' to get a Supporting Actor nomination for 'Jane Eyre'.
It's a very open category so if Focus campagns there (I know he's a lead but category fraud is so common nowadays) I know there's a chance Oscar will bite.
Anyway, I hope 'Shame' is the one who gets him the nomination, but I'm not counting on it so a nomination for 'Jane Eyre' - in which he's equally good, intoxicanting and enchanting - would be a nice surprise.
You forgot to mention also Cate Blanchett winning the Volpi Cup for I'm Not There. Shame ins't accessible at all for Academy members but, maybe, with a good campaign, miracles could happen. Both Fassbender and Mulligan (as supporting) should be in the race, they're both amazing.
Fox Searchlight picked up Shame, so expect hard pushes for Fassbender and Mulligan.
The most significant thing? Who cares about Oscars when a major auteur and master of cinema gets his first Grand Slam of film festivals? That's very very important and significant, sorry.
Oscar is for fun (and I love Oscars for this reason). It's not significant. There in Venice they know much more about movies than in Kodak Theatre. They go with Brokeback Mountain, not Crash.
Is the title of this post a play on "Two Girls, One Cup"? If so, ewwww.
FYI - 2nd clip for Albert Nobbs: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UzHjBia6eIU
@Evan
HAHAHAHAHAH awesome!!
I am very happy for the win of Fassbender and Alps in screenplay. I expected that the Actress award would go to Yip. I thought that Faust would get the Director price for the great Sokurov but I guess they loved the film. Didn't see the People Mountain People see directing award coming though.
Nat I feel you are writing shame's actors off to early,as we have seen with jackie earle haey in little children plus ellen burstyn in requiem for a dream and other performances of the past few years the academy will embrace you if the critics and publics collective applauding is too hard to ignore.
I really liked the Venice coverage this year. The opposing viewpoints on some films were fascinating.
The film (that won't be Oscar nominated) I'm most interested in is the new Shion Sono film. I haven't seen a lot of his work, but I love the films I have seen. Noriko's Dinner Table is especially impressive. If nothing else, he knows how to push his actors to get memorable nuanced performances. His whole thing is not answering questions in the film so people talk about the film. That aspect is pretty hit or miss.
Any chance that the Russians might choose "Faust" as their Foreign Language Film candidate?
Yay Fassy! First major award. This pretty much now thrusts him into the Best Actor race. Even better to see Shame get picked up by a great distributor like Fox Searchlight. Win-Win-Win. Cannot wait to get a glimpse from the trailer.
Very happy for ALPS and Giorgos Lanthimos as well. Such a good year for that guy.
Kinda called it that Aronofsky and his jury would go for something like Faust. Seemed too good to pass up with a story/concept like that from a director like that. Even though heavily buzzed-about Russian Ark was passed over as an official submission from Russia back in '02, this one now definitely has a shot.
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