‘Joker’ takes home top prize at Venice Film Festival

“Joker,” directed by Todd Phillips, was awarded the Golden Lion for best film at the 76th Venice International Film Festival on Saturday by a competition jury led by Argentine filmmaker Lucrecia Martel. The film received fervent attention as well as critical praise for its portrayal of its troubled, murderous central figure, drawn from the DC Comics character and played by Joaquin Phoenix.

“There is no movie without Joaquin Phoenix, the fiercest and bravest and most open-minded lion that I know,” Phillips said in an acceptance speech, playing on the name of the festival’s signature awards. The director also thanked the film’s studio, Warner Brothers, and DC Comics for “stepping out of their comfort zone” and “taking such a bold swing on me and this movie.” Phillips’ previous films include comedies such as “The Hangover,” its two sequels and “Old School.”

The award for “Joker,” an unusual selection for the Venice competition, came on the heels of an unexpected high-profile honor for a new film by Roman Polanski. The Silver Lion, the penultimate prize, went to Polanski’s “An Officer and a Spy,” a retelling of the anti-Semitic persecution of French army officer Alfred Dreyfus.

Polanski, who fled the United States four decades ago while awaiting sentencing for statutory rape, remains a flashpoint for controversy and was expelled from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in 2018. French actress Emmanuelle Seigner, who is married to Polanski and in his new film, accepted the award on his behalf. Polanski did not attend the festival.

The Silver Lion award for Best Director went to Roy Andersson for “About Endlessness,” a series of tragicomic tableau scenes. Andersson won the Golden Lion for Best Film five years ago for “A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence.”

Among the prizes for acting, Luca Marinelli won the Coppa Volpi for Best Actor for his role as a sailor turned writer in Pietro Marcello’s “Martin Eden,” an adaptation of the novel by Jack London. Ariane Ascaride won for Best Actress for “Gloria Mundi,” directed by Robert Guédiguian. The Marcello Mastroianni Award for Best Young Actor or Actress went to Toby Wallace in “Babyteeth,” the debut feature from Australian director Shannon Murphy, one of two female directors in the competition.

The 76th edition of the festival opened with Japanese auteur Hirokazu Kore-eda’s drama “The Truth,” starring Catherine Deneuve, Juliette Binoche and Ethan Hawke, in a change of pace from recent high-profile Hollywood openers such as “First Man.” The showcase of prominent auteurs continued with Noah Baumbach (“Marriage Story”), James Gray (“Ad Astra”), Andersson (“About Endlessness”), Lou Ye (“Saturday Fiction”), Olivier Assayas (“Wasp Network”), Pablo Larrain (“Ema”), Polanski (“An Officer and a Spy”) and Steven Soderbergh (“The Laundromat”).

This year’s Golden Lions for lifetime achievement were given to Julie Andrews and to Pedro Almodóvar, whose film “Pain and Glory” was shown at Cannes in May.