Maggie Gyllenhaal kicked off her term as Venice jury president by calling out the lack of women filmmakers in the running for the prestigious Golden Lion. And on Saturday night, she concluded it by awarding the prize to the only film solely directed by a woman: May el-Toukhy’s “Woman Unknown.”
She also explained the jury’s decision to award “Woman Unknown” star Mathilde Arcel with the Volpi Cup for best actress. “You’re allowed to give two awards to a Golden Lion winner if the second award you want to give is unanimous,” Gyllenhaal said. “So we unanimously allowed to award Mathilde, who I’d like to say publicly, for all the press, is going to blow our socks off.”
The only other movie in competition involving a woman director was “NAZA,” which was co-helmed by Rachel Szor and Yuval Abraham. The powerful documentary about the conflict in Gaza took home the special jury prize.
See the full list of Venice award winners here.
