photo credit - official still - Netflix - courtesy La Biennale #Venice78 - Competition
The Lost Daughter
Maggie Gyllenhaal
Best Screenplay - Award
The Lost Daughter
Maggie Gyllenhaal
Best Screenplay - Award
Alone on a seaside vacation, Leda becomes consumed with a young mother and daughter as she watches them on the beach. Unnerved by their compelling relationship, - and their raucous and menacing extended family, - Leda is overwhelmed by her own memories of the terror, confusion and intensity of early motherhood. An impulsive act shocks Leda into the strange and ominous world of her own mind, where she is forced to face the unconventional choices she made as a young mother and their consequences.
Olivia Coleman and Dakota Johnson
"When I read the novel something came through to me that was very strange and painful but also undeniably true. Some secret piece of my experience as a mother, as a lover, as a woman in the world was being spoken out loud for the first time. And I thought, how exciting and dangerous to create an experience like that—not quiet and alone with a book—but in a room full of living, feeling people. What would it feel like to sit next to your own mother or husband or daughter or wife as common feelings and experiences that have been kept hidden are exposed? Of course, there’s a terror and a danger in relating to someone struggling through things that we’ve been told are shameful or ugly. But when those experiences are put up on screen there’s also the opportunity to feel comforted—If someone else has these thoughts and feelings, maybe I’m not alone. This is a part of our experience that is only articulated rarely, and mostly through aberration, disjuncture, or dreaming."
Maggie Gyllenhaal
Director's Statement
Cynthia Erivo and Maggie Gyllenhaal
accepting the award for Best Screenplay
Main Cast
Olivia Colman, Jessie Buckley, Dakota Johnson, Ed Harris, Peter Sarsgaard, Paul Mescal, Dagmara Dominczyk, Alba Rohrwacher
Screenplay
Maggie Gyllenhaal
The 78th International Venice Film Festival
#Venice78 - Competition
Spencer
Pablo Larrain
The marriage of Princess Diana and Prince Charles has long since grown cold. Though rumors of affairs and a divorce abound, peace is ordained for the Christmas festivities at the Queen’s Sandringham Estate. There’s eating and drinking, shooting and hunting. Diana knows the game. But this year, things will be a whole lot different. Spencer is an imagining of what might have happened during those fateful days.
Kristen Stewart
credit - Luis Poirot - courtesy La Biennale di Venezia
"We all grew up understanding what a fairytale is, but Diana Spencer changed the paradigm, and the idealised icons that pop culture creates, forever. This is the story of a princess who decided not to become a queen but chose to build her identity by herself. It’s an upside-down fairytale. I’ve always been very surprised by her decision and thought it must have been very hard. That is the heart of the movie. I wanted to explore Diana’s process, as she oscillates between doubt and determination, finally making a bid for freedom. We didn’t aim to make a docudrama, we wanted to create something by
taking elements of the real, and then using imagination, to tell the life of a woman with the tools of cinema. That is why cinema is so fantastic: there is always space for imagination. Building the character of Diana, we didn’t just want to create a replicated image of her but use cinema and its tools to create an internal world that striked the right balance between the mystery and fragility of her character."
Pablo Larrain
Director's Statement
Main Cast
Kristen Stewart, Timothy Spall, Jack Farthing, Sean Harris, Sally Hawkins
Old Time Glamour
Lido di Venezia - Hotel Excelsior