74th International Film Festival Venice

The INTERFILM Jury of the 74th Mostra internazionale d'arte cinematografica in Venice has chosen as winner of the 7th INTERFILM Award for Promoting Interreligious Dialogue "Oblivion Verses" by Alirezah Khatami. It is a French-German-Netherlandic-Chilean co-production which points at Latin American dictatorships but is situated in an universal, poetic dimension. It has been supported also by church institutions and was screened in the Orizzonti competition. "Oblivion Verses" also won the Prize for Best Screenplay of the Orizzonti jury and the Prize for the Best Debut Film by the International Film Critics (Fipresci) Jury.

The 74th Film Festival in Venice opened with the American competition entry "Downsizing" by Alexander Payne, a Sci-fi comedy on shrinking people in order to save resources. 21 films were screened in the international competition. The Golden Lion was awarded to Guillermo del Toro's "Shape of Water", a nostalgic, romantic fairy tale reminiscent of Hollywood cinema of the 50s. Samuel Maoz from Israel received a Silver Lion, the Grand Prix of the jury, for ""Foxtrot", a bitter family drama about guilt and death on the background of the lasting state of war-like conflicts in Israel. In addition, the jury gave a Special Award to Warwick Thornton's Australian western "Sweet Country" which reminds of the disregard of the Aborigines by the white immigrants. In the competition was screened also Ai Wei-wei's documentary on refugees, "Human Flow".

The INTERFILM Jury choses the winner of the 7th INTERFILM-Award for Promoting Interreligious Dialogue among films selected from the international competition and the Orizzonti competiton.

Link: Festival-Website

Download Regulations of the Award as PDF