Maggie Gyllenhaal, Penélope Cruz, Jane Campion bag awards at Venice

Venice: A timely film about illegal abortions in 1960s France won the Venice Film Festival’s Golden Lion on Saturday, capping a strong night for women including Penelope Cruz and Jane Campion. Audrey Diwan’s “Happening” arrives just as the abortion debate is raging again over new restrictions in Texas and its decriminalization in Mexico.

“I did this movie with anger, with desire, with my belly, my guts, my heart and my head,” said Diwan, accepting the top prize for her delicately rendered, yet gut-punching drama. It was a great year for female filmmakers, with best director going to iconic New Zealand auteur Jane Campion for her emotionally complex Western “The Power of the Dog”, starring Benedict Cumberbatch. And best screenplay went to Maggie Gyllenhaal for her directorial debut “The Lost Daughter”, an unflinching look at the difficulties of balancing career and motherhood starring British Oscar-winner Olivia Colman. “There is a change in the air,” Campion said, regarding the MeToo movement and its effect on film.

“It’s like the Berlin Wall coming down for women. It was like the end of Apartheid. There’s a new feeling for what women are thinking, what they’re saying, what they’re doing.” With a plethora of stars and high-caliber selection of films, the glitzy festival on Venice's beachfront Lido roared back to life this year after the pandemic sucked the glamour out of the 2020 edition.

The second-place Silver Lion went to beloved Italian director Paolo Sorrentino for his strikingly personal “The Hand of God” about his youth in the gritty southern city of Naples, which also earned the newcomer award for young star Filippo Scotia.

But gender issues felt dominant. The festival closed with “The Last Duel”, playing out of competition, a medieval jousting drama starring Matt Damon and Ben Affleck that went heavy on its message of historical injustice towards women. “I think any reasonable humane, empathetic, conscionable person would have to be a feminist,” Affleck told AFP in an interview.