“Political”, in quotation marks for its incessant iteration, was the go-to word for the 83rd Venice Film Festival. A term both evocative and evasive in an ideologically charged era where everything becomes a stance, even the professed intention not to take one. Exactly that was apparently the well-calculated intention of the Mostra del Cinema, running from 2nd to 12th September 2026: to be considered political, without actually having to bother to position itself. The program and awards were defined by antithesis and indetermination, from Gaza to Artistic Director Alberto Barbera’s apparent gender issues. All the while, the Mostra kept tending its conservatism, canonism and commercialism, merely allowing a few tokens of progressiveness and diversity.
The festival eagerly scooped up the applause for the devastating, urgent NAZA, as if the Biennale jury resignation over Israel’s and Russia’s pavilion had never happened, denying any lesson about the responsibility of cultural institutions. Its sole obligation is allegedly to the art of cinema, or rather: an idea of cinematic excellence shaped by privileged white men for an audience and critics of their peers. A concept that welcomes self-indulgent sexist soliloquies like Nicolas Pariser’s One Minute to Midnight, Edoardo De Angelis’ burlesque banality The Fire Within You, and Nanni Moretti’s inane reactionary romcom It Will Happen Tonight, but believes contributions from African countries, underclass filmmakers and female directors are beneath its quality standards.
In light of this attitude, the Golden Lion awarded by a jury led by Maggie Gyllenhaal and including Shahrbanoo Sadat and Kaouther Ben Hania, for May el-Toukhy’s grim portrait of Denmark’s public shaming of women suspected of sexual relations with Nazis, Woman Unknown, as well as a Volpi Cup for its lead actress Mathilde Arcel, also made a clear political point. Still, this in no way resolved the blatant gender discrimination that Gyllenhaal described as “systemic”. A Grand Jury Prize for Lee Chang-dong’s class-critical relationship drama Possible Love was overshadowed by the Best Director honour for Ilya Khrzhanovsky for yet another part of his controversial Dau project, who referred to his mother’s Ukrainian descent.
As if it would void his ties to oligarch Sergei Adoniev and the casting of Russia-financed lead actor Teodor Currentzis. Ukrainian officials had opposed Venice’s decision to include the work, which was heavily criticised due to the unethical methods associated with the wider DAU project. John Malkovich took Best Actor for Martin McDonagh’s Wild Horse Nine, though that couldn’t beckon him back to an awards gala reflecting the whole festival run with its severe lack of international stars. Stéphane Brizé’s fifth take on corporate culture, A Good Little Soldier, took the Best Screenplay award. However, all eyes were on Rachel Szor and Yuval Abraham, the director duo behind the Oscar-winning No Other Land, who unmasked Israel’s state-sponsored killing machine in NAZA.
The documentary, promptly and predictably denounced by Netanyahu as “Palestinian propaganda”, won a Special Jury Prize. It felt paltry, however, compared to the Guardian-produced investigative film’s 24.5-minute standing ovation, the longest in the festival’s recorded history. Beyond the competition, Danny Boyle’s opening film Ink hailed Rupert Murdoch’s reinvention of the British tabloid press with The Sun. Eagerly awaited, Alex Gibney’s Musk had nothing new to say about Elon and his technocratic politics. Similarly, Primetime only revealed director Lance Oppenheim’s lack of analytical insight into the media legacy of the voyeuristic reality TV series To Catch a Predator and the psyche of its host, Chris Hansen.
As a cynical punchline on the future of festivals and film in general, Francesco Carrozzini’s AI screen slop Be Brave served as an abysmal antithesis of creativity. A synthetic self-caricature of the thing least AI - originality - the bloated advertising for Diesel founder Renzo Rosso is the film a press audience increasingly resorting to ChatGPT regurgitations deserves. Premiering in the same section, Sophie Fiennes’ final part of her seminal trilogy, The Pervert’s Guide to Utopias, recommends taking on the future with “a healthy dose of pessimism”. A festival edition defined by great films about what’s horrible in this world, and horrible films about what is allegedly great, the 83rd Mostra leaves one hardly another choice.
The award winners are listed here.