lifestyle MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 11, 2017 FEATURE Mexican director Guillermo Del Toro holds the Golden Lion award for his movie ‘The Shape of Water’ after the award ceremony at the 74th annual Venice International Samuel Maoz is awarded the jury’s special Silver Lion prize Xavier Legrand is awarded the Silver Lion for best director Kamel El Basha holds aloft the Volpi Cup for best actor for Film Festival, in Venice, Italy, Saturday. — AP photos for ‘Foxtrot’. for ‘Jusqu’ a la garde’ or ‘Custody’. his role in ‘The Insult’. uillermo del Toro’s monster thriller “The ture being held at a high-security lab. Many “Foxtrot,” a compelling study of a family’s grief Haigh’s “Lean on Pete.” Italian director Susanna Shape of Water” took top prize at the viewers in Venice fell for the movie’s audacious and the way trauma echoes through the gen- Nicchiarelli’s “Nico, 1988,” a biopic of the for- GVenice Film Festival on Saturday, cap- mix of genres: It’s a monster movie, a Cold War erations. Maoz, who won the Golden Lion in mer Velvet Underground singer Nico, won the ping an 11-day event where the demons of thriller, social-issues drama and even, at times, 2009 for his war film “Lebanon,” has received Horizons competition, which focuses on new- social division and environmental disaster a musical. Del Toro said his win was a vindica- some negative reaction in Israel because er directors and edgier fare. loomed large on the screen. Del Toro was tion for monster movies, science fiction and “Foxtrot” is critical of the army, the country’s Venice has a track record of launching films named winner of the Golden Lion by a jury other sometimes-derided cinema genres. “This most respected institution. toward Hollywood awards success. This year’s headed by US actress Annette Bening, beating is a beautiful encouragement, a beautiful act edition produced a crop of potential acting contenders including George Clooney’s of love, and I think it is something very neces- ‘The Insult’ nominees, including Frances McDormand for “Suburbicon” and Alexander Payne’s sary,” he told reporters. “It’s about time that we Maoz said no society could flourish when “Three Billboards,” Helen Mirren and Donald “Downsizing.” understand that you cannot only legitimize “critics are considered to be traitors.” “If I criticize Sutherland for “The Leisure Seeker” and The Mexican director said his victory sent a certain genres” and not others. the place I live, I do it because I worry,” he said. “I Lawrence for “mother!” Venice’s first-ever prize message to “remain pure and stay with your The 74th edition of the world’s oldest film do it because I want to protect it. I do it from for best virtual reality went to “Arden’s Wake,” a faith, in whatever you have faith in.” “In my festival brought stars including Clooney, Matt love.” France’s Xavier Legrand was named best case, it’s monsters,” said the 52-year-old direc- Damon and Jennifer Lawrence to the canal- director for his first full-length film “Custody,” tor of films rich in demons and other fantasti- crossed Italian city’s lush Lido island. Del Toro’s which also won the festival’s first-feature prize. cal creatures, including “Hellboy” and “Pan’s film was one of several in the lineup that Palestinian stage veteran Kamel El Basha was Labyrinth.” “I have never been a sportsman and looked anxiously at humanity’s treatment of named best actor for Lebanese director Ziad this feels like running the marathon and win- the Earth and one another. Similar concerns Doueiri’s drama “The Insult.” Britain’s Charlotte ning,” del Toro said after collecting the trophy. showed up in the small-town rage depicted in Rampling took the best actress prize for Andrea “This movie took six years to get made, so Martin McDonagh’s “Three Billboards Outside Pallaoro’s film “Hannah.” Charlie Plummer holds the Marcello after six years this is the beginning of getting Ebbing Missouri”; in the spiritual agonies of Other winners included Warwick Thornton’s Mastroianni Award for Best Young Actor for there and feeling the reward and the love of Paul Schrader’s eco-drama “First Reformed”; in Australian Western “Sweet Country,” which his role in the movie ‘Lean on Pete’. an audience - in this case the love of a jury and the migrants fleeing war, drought and hunger won a Special Jury Prize, and McDonagh’s post-apocalyptic story by Eugene Y.K. Chung of a festival.” in Ai Weiwei’s documentary “Human Flow”; “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri,” of the San Francisco-based startup Penrose. The victory gives immediate awards-season and in “mother!”, Darren Aronofsky’s wild para- which took the trophy for best screenplay. US Chung said virtual reality “is where film was momentum to “The Shape of Water,” the story ble of Mother Earth under attack. actor Charlie Plummer, 18, was named best 100 years ago, an emerging art form.” “And it’s of a mute young woman, played by Sally The festival’s runner-up Grand Jury Prize young performer for portraying a lonely boy Actress Charlotte Rampling holds the Volpi going to be a real exciting journey,” he said. Hawkins, who falls for a mysterious sea crea- went to Israeli director Samuel Maoz’s who befriends a tired old racehorse in Andrew Cup for best actress for her role in ‘Hannah’. Lawless reported from London. — AP Aaron Sorkin makes directorial debut with American crime drama Actor Miranda Richardson, left to right, scar-winning screenwriter Aaron Sorkin praises a scenes,” he said. “I’m always most comfortable as a writer director David Gordon convicted poker queen for taking the moral high inside four walls. I like just writing people talking in rooms.” Green, writer John Pollen, Oground in his directorial debut “Molly’s Game,” One of the hardest challenges in making this film, he said, and actors Tatiana which premiered Saturday at the Toronto film festival. The was trying to make poker interesting. Maslany, Jake Gyllenhaal American crime drama stars Jessica Chastain as the for- “I needed poker to look exciting and it’s not,” he said. and subject of the film, mer Olympic skier Molly Bloom, who went on to run one “It’s the world’s worst spectator sport.” Sorkin said he was Jeff Bauman pose for a of the largest high-stakes poker games in the United moved to make a film about Molly after meeting her in per- photo before a press States. Her games at their peak required a $250,000 buy- son. He described her as a woman “in deep, deep trouble” conference for the movie in and attracted some of Hollywood and New York’s elite- after her arrest with no prospects at age 39, for a run-in “Stronger” at the Toronto as well as mobsters-but she withheld most of their names with “an illegal poker game from a really long time and International Film Festival in her memoir. pleading guilty in federal court in a mob indictment.” “A in Toronto on Saturday. The film follows suit, though the identities of some of woman who is in that kind of trouble is saying no to what I her regulars have emerged including several who were assume was a lot of money,” he said, “which nowadays is arrested. “We live in a time when people sell each other even more attractive.” out,” Sorkin told journalists. “The rest of us don’t seem to mind that that just happened. We’re not calling the seller The West Wing out.” “Molly (had) no sense at all that she was going to do Sorkin is perhaps best known for his work on the hit tel- something heroic, it just came naturally to her not to do evision series “The West Wing.” Asked how he might the wrong thing,” he said. The film also features Kevin change the show to suit the current political climate, he Costner as Molly’s hardnosed father and Idris Elba as the answered: “Not a thing.” “I would do the exact same show attorney who defended her in court-and for taking a moral where we get to see and hear what it looks and sounds like man who lost both legs in the Boston Marathon marathon. A US citizen of Chechen descent, Dzhokhar stand by not informing on her clients. The film was shot in when well-intentioned, thoughtful people-with whom we bombings inspired moviegoers Saturday, walking the Tsarnaev, was sentenced to death in 2015 for perpetrating the Toronto. Molly, who is banned from Canada because she may have differences of opinion, but whose intentions are Ared carpet at the Toronto film festival for the pre- bombings, one of the bloodiest assaults on US soil since the pleaded guilty to a federal crime in the United States, was unimpeachable-are working hard and are dedicated to miere of “Stronger.” The film, directed by David Gordon September 11, 2001 attacks. granted special permission to enter the country in order to public service,” he said. Sorkin said the idea behind the Green, tells the true story of Jeff Bauman, who at 27 cap- He was found, injured, in a grounded boat on which he attend the film’s premiere here. series, which ran from 1999 to 2006, was to “show a very tured the hearts of Boston and become a symbol of hope had scrawled a bloody message defending the attacks as a highly competent group of people who may slip on following the 2013 attack. Bauman had been at the finish means to avenge US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.