Audrey Diwan’s Happening takes top prize; Jane Campion wins best director for The Power of the Dog
The film Happening, a sensitively told story about a young student who falls pregnant, won the Venice International Film Festival’s top prize at the end of a glamorous, socially distanced awards gala last night. Directed by Audrey Diwan, it is based on the book of the same name by Annie Ernaux and is set in the 1960s. “I feel heard! I did this movie with my belly, my heart, my guts, and my head,” Diwan, who is French, told the audience at the close of an evening that brought women’s experience to the foreground. The director invited the film’s 22-year old French-Romanian star, Anamaria Vartolomei, up on to the stage with her to collect the prize.
Announcing the award, chairman of the prize jury Bong Joon-ho said. “We jury members dearly loved this film. It was unanimous.”