Everything is already decided. Since yesterday afternoon, when the 7 members of the Exhibition Jury who preside over it Julianne Moore and integrate our compatriot Mariano Cohn Alberto Barbera, director of the Venice Film Festival, was presented with the list of winners of the 8 awards that the Jury.

Moore and Cohn went with the Nobel Prize for Literature Kazuo Ishiguro, Audrey Diwan, Rodrigo Sorogoyen, Leila Hatami and Leonardo Di Costanzo, the other members of the jury, to debate without leaking pressure, nor then about the decisions they made.

I always say that prizes are not awarded to festivals, but are distributed.

You have to be comfortable with so many, impossible to caress the 23 films – one or the other should be given a better lesson – and it will be necessary to see, first, if the decisions were unanimous, or if Julianne Moore imposed her opinion.

And unlike Cannes, Venice can award more than one award to the same film.

The awards are the Golden Lion for Best Film, Silver for Best Director, Special Jury Award, Jury Award, Screenplay, Volpi Cup for Best Actor and Best Actress, and the Marcello Mastroianni Award, reserved for a revelation representation. .

The following are my hypotheses for this afternoon’s awards ceremony, not necessarily the ones I would vote for as the best of this 79th edition of the Mostra.

acting kills the movie

Every director appreciates an excellent interpretation of their actors, because it helps their film to have satisfactory results. But at the moment of the award ceremony, if an interpretation is exceptional, it will surely win the prize, and if the jury splits up and decides to distribute the prizes among 8 of the 23 films in competition, the director of the film suffers. empty hands.

Yes Colin Farrell stay this year with the Coppa Volpi, the one who would suffer from it would be the director of the spirits of the islandMartin McDonagh, because it remains indiscriminately to be placed over the fireplace.

Another prize that will start as scheduled on the second day of screenings: Cate Blanchettfor me he wins his second Coppa Volpi, which is in addition to the one he won 15 years ago I’m not therenow for the conductor accused of abuse in Tar. Another option is Tilda Swinton – she already won it here 31 years ago, and she also has a Golden Lion in contention – for her dual role as mother and daughter in The eternal daughter.

So there are actually 5 awards left for as many films. Because Marcello Mastroianni never ceases to be a mime for an interpreter who is just starting out. It would be necessary to get out of the race for the other prizes the spirits of the island Already Tar, two of the best films in competition. Or not.

The Golden Lion?

There are four candidates to win the three most important prizes (Golden Lion for best film, Silver for best director and Special Jury Prize).

Much was said that there was consensus with the documentary All the beauty and the bloodshedby Laura Poitras, about Nan Goldin, the artist who denounced the Sackler family, a pharmaceutical empire responsible for 400,000 deaths in the United States due to the opioid epidemic.

Another director from the documentary, Frenchwoman Alice Diop, ventures into fictional cinema for the first time with Sant’Omer… based on a disturbing true story. This is followed by the filicide of a Senegalese mother to her 15-month-old baby, who she leaves abandoned on a beach, knowing that the high tide will take her away.

no bears, by Jafar Panahi, in addition to his cinematographic merits, has the value that his director is imprisoned in his country, Iran, by order of the regime. Won’t the jury back him up with a prize?

And usually there is always an Italian among the winners. It will be the turn of Luca Guadagnino, the director of call me by your name? It didn’t film in Italy, but in the United States, but it seems to be the one with the most significance, with Bones and alla genre film in which Timothée Chalamet returned to direct.

And Argentina?

The film Argentina, 1985, by Santiago Miter, who had aroused the acclaim of international critics -yesterday he won the FIPRESCI prize, and a mention of Signis-, and a 9-minute ovation at last Saturday’s Gala, could win the Jury Prize, or at the best script. The Volpi Cup as best actor, to which he is a candidate Ricardo Darinthen Brendan Fraserfrom The whaleseems destined for Colin Farrell.

women in power

IF the Golden Lion goes to All the beauty and the bloodshed or Sant’Omerit will be the third consecutive year that a director has won it, after Chloé Zhao Land of the nomads and today’s jury member Audrey Diwan, for The evening.

Moore is also the third woman to hold the presidency of the jury in the past four years.

Of course this is all my speculation. This afternoon, starting at 15:00, we will see what the Jury’s decision was, which will be final. wait