Clap de fin at the Lido: Saturday, September 6, the Venice Festival 2025 crowned the intimate triptych of Jim Jarmusch and highlighted The Voice of Hind Rajab. At the Venice Festival, under the presidency of Alexander Payne, the jury favored political narratives through staging. Here are the facts, reactions, and stakes that shape the awards season and the upcoming landscape of releases.
A prize list that favors unique voices
The Venice Film Festival closed its 82nd edition. This edition stood out for its attention to directors on the margins. Indeed, the festival highlighted those who are far from the fireworks. The Golden Lion crowns Father Mother Sister Brother by Jim Jarmusch, a discreet and muted triptych that follows family trajectories between the Northeast American, Dublin, and Paris. The Grand Jury Prize (Silver Lion) goes to The Voice of Hind Rajab by Kaouther Ben Hania, a powerful work on the memory of a Palestinian child killed in Gaza in January 2024. The Silver Lion for Best Director honors Benny Safdie for The Smashing Machine, a portrait of Mark Kerr, a legend of MMA. In terms of acting, the Volpi Cup honors Toni Servillo (La grazia by Paolo Sorrentino) and Xin Zhilei (The Sun Rises on Us All by Cai Shangjun). The Screenplay Award is given to Valérie Donzelli and Gilles Marchand for À pied d’œuvre.
A Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival 2025 for Jim Jarmusch
At 72 years old, Jim Jarmusch delivers one of his most sober films. Father Mother Sister Brother is constructed in three movements Father, Mother, Sister & Brother that compose a family portrait in echoes, from one sequence to another. The staging favors gestures, silences, a restrained musicality, faithful to the filmmaker’s asceticism. The cast is in line: Adam Driver, Cate Blanchett, Vicky Krieps, Tom Waits, Charlotte Rampling, Mayim Bialik, Indya Moore, and Luka Sabbat cross paths without ever overshadowing the setup.
The film is the result of a US/Ireland/France co-production, notably involving Saint Laurent Productions (headed by Anthony Vaccarello) and the young Avignon-based company Scala Films. An additional sign of the now assumed bridges between fashion and art-house cinema. After its world premiere at the Lido, the feature film will be released in France on January 7, 2026. Its distribution will be handled by Les Films du Losange, while an American release is planned for late December 2025.
Without grand announcements, Jarmusch reminds us that politics can surface without slogans. At the closing, he assumed a simple position: one can make a "political" film by cultivating empathy and connection between people, without hammered speeches. His triptych, by embracing diverse places and social classes, makes these fragmentations the true subject.
"The Voice of Hind Rajab": the moral shockwave
Presented in competition, The Voice of Hind Rajab moved the audience with its form: Kaouther Ben Hania reconstructs, from call recordings, the last hours of a six-year-old girl trapped in a car amid the fighting in Gaza. The director chooses to leave the violence off-screen, focusing the gaze on the Red Crescent operators’ office. The film is met with long ovations and leaves with the Silver Lion – Grand Jury Prize.
Supported by international backing (producers and Hollywood artists joined the project), the feature film reminds us of the role of festivals: preserving voices when the clamor of weapons drowns everything out. The filmmaker dedicated her prize to the rescue teams, explaining that cinema can neither "bring back Hind" nor erase the crimes, but it can hold memory. Selected to represent Tunisia at the 2026 Oscars, the film is seeking distributors in Europe and the United States.
Staging, bodies in struggle: Benny Safdie and Dwayne Johnson
With The Smashing Machine, Benny Safdie films Dwayne Johnson against his heroic roles. Here, the former wrestler plays Mark Kerr, an MMA star grappling with his body and doubts. The Silver Lion for Best Director rewards a first solo work for the director. He was long associated with his brother. The film, produced by A24, aims to document the gray areas of sports performance: addictions, injuries, the price of glory.
Actors and actresses: the majestic return of Toni Servillo, the rise of Xin Zhilei
The Volpi Cup for Best Actor honors Toni Servillo, a grieving president in La grazia by Paolo Sorrentino, the opening film of this Mostra. The Sorrentino/Servillo tandem, a global revelation with La Grande Bellezza, ten years ago, finds here a melancholic echo.
For Best Actress, Chinese Xin Zhilei is honored for The Sun Rises on Us All by Cai Shangjun, a moral tragedy about time and guilt.
Screenplay, special prizes, and young talents
The Screenplay Award goes to the duo Valérie Donzelli/Gilles Marchand for À pied d’œuvre. The Special Jury Prize honors Below the Clouds by Gianfranco Rosi, a documentary meditation shot at the foot of Vesuvius. The Marcello Mastroianni Award for young performer highlights Luna Wedler for Silent Friend by Ildikó Enyedi.
Glamour, fashion, and cinema: the Venice Film Festival under influence
The closing film, a French showcase: "Chien 51"
Out of competition, the closing session honored Cédric Jimenez with Chien 51 (Dog 51), a futuristic thriller set in a Paris 2045 controlled by an AI named ALMA. It brings together Gilles Lellouche, Adèle Exarchopoulos, Louis Garrel, Romain Duris, Valeria Bruni Tedeschi, and Stéphane Bak. A spectacular calling card for French production, at the crossroads of thriller and science fiction.
Where does the Golden Lion fit in Jarmusch’s trajectory?
The prize list places Jim Jarmusch at the heart of the contemporary canon. Since Stranger Than Paradise (1984), the filmmaker has explored wandering, the elliptical, and gentle irony. Father Mother Sister Brother extends this vein: three autonomous stories, connected by a sense of purity, a precise direction of actors, and a transatlantic circulation that dialogues between New Jersey, Dublin, and Paris. The musicality that is the trademark of the author of Dead Man or Only Lovers Left Alive is heard here in the management of silences and breaths, more than in the soundtrack.
The film also fits into a biographical trajectory: at 72 years old, Jarmusch refines a minimal grammar that refuses ostentation. This restraint may have unsettled some critics during the festival. However, the overall vision, with its moral and formal coherence, won over the jury. The Golden Lion thus values a cinema of attention and empathy, contrary to the spectacular.
Representing war: the ethics of off-screen
With The Voice of Hind Rajab, Kaouther Ben Hania chooses modesty and listening. The violence remains off-screen. The film reconstructs the hours of waiting and calls of a six-year-old child. She is trapped in Gaza. The gesture is political because it organizes a perception: making a voice exist, preserving a memory when everything conspires to erase it. The screening elicited an ovation of over twenty minutes, which is rare. This intensity is notable for a film refusing raw illustration.
The project attracted powerful allies, among them engaged artists and international producers, Joaquin Phoenix and Rooney Mara being among the co-producers without deviating from its austere line: a simple setup, a charged off-screen, and a presence of the Red Crescent rescue teams. The distinction by the Grand Prize confirms this aspect. The form today becomes the place where the democratic debate is replayed. This is particularly true in festival cinema.
Dwayne Johnson, a body in reconversion
In The Smashing Machine, Benny Safdie works on the intensity and fragility of a brand-body. Dwayne Johnson abandons the blockbuster arsenal. He now embodies Mark Kerr, an athlete caught in the logic of performance. Moreover, he is confronted with pain. The film questions what the domination costs—injuries, addictions, isolation—and what the camera can or cannot save. The Silver Lion for Best Director salutes a first solo gesture that extends the nervous energy of Good Time and Uncut Gems in a different way.
Brands, platforms, and co-productions: the new economy of the Lido
The red carpet as a sounding board
Calendar and circulation of works
- Father Mother Sister Brother: US release announced end of 2025; France on January 7, 2026.
- The Voice of Hind Rajab: selected to represent Tunisia at the 2026 Oscars; actively seeking distributors in Europe and the United States.
- The Smashing Machine: A24 release to be specified according to territories between end of 2025 and 2026.
- La grazia: priority circulation in Italy in fall 2025, other countries to be confirmed.
- Silent Friend and The Sun Rises on Us All: international sales ongoing, schedule to be refined.
This movement illustrates the shifted temporality between the festival time and the encounter with the public. The awards accelerate visibility but do not abolish the complexity of markets or strategies by territory.
What the 82nd Mostra reveals
- The centrality of politics through form: from Jarmusch to Ben Hania, politics circulates through staging choices.
- The role of transnational co-productions: Father Mother Sister Brother articulates financing and shooting across several territories, and marks the entry of brands into production.
- A springboard for the awards season: the awards already place these films on the radar of the Oscars and Césars.
Milestones: dates, jury, context
- Dates: from August 27 to September 6, 2025, at the Lido of Venice.
- Artistic direction: Alberto Barbera.
- Jury President (Competition): filmmaker Alexander Payne.
- Opening: La grazia by Paolo Sorrentino.
- Closing: Chien 51 by Cédric Jimenez.
- Honorary Golden Lions: Werner Herzog and Kim Novak.