El-Toukhy Wins Golden Lion for Woman Unknown — SkimNews
Get the Culture newsletter
Daily culture — film, music, books, the trends and ideas worth your attention. Free.
- May El-Toukhy won the Golden Lion for Best Film at the 83rd Venice Film Festival with Woman Unknown, a post-World War Two thriller set in Denmark exploring the silencing of women after liberation.
- Mathilde Arcel won Best Actress for her portrayal of Marie, a housemaid whose past fraternization with a German soldier threatens her impending marriage to her wealthy employer in 1945 Denmark.
- Laleh Marzban won Best Actress in the Orizzonti section for Falling House, delivering a hijab-less performance as an Iranian woman barred from pursuing a modeling career by her authoritarian father.
- Auguste Bernard Kouemo Yanghu won the Lion of the Future award for his debut film House of the Wind, which follows an 80-year-old Cameroonian woman grappling with migration's impact on family.
- Ilya Khrzhanovsky won Best Director for Dau, while Lee Chang-Dong’s Possible Love received the Grand Jury Prize, and the Israeli documentary Naza earned the Special Jury Prize after a record 25-minute ovation.
Why it matters: Women’s stories—particularly those silenced by war, patriarchy, or state oppression—dominated both the main prizes and undercurrents of this year’s festival. Marzban’s Farsi-language dedication to Iranian women facing repression adds geopolitical weight to an artistic win, turning a personal triumph into a transnational statement.
Ask SkimNews
