| Golden Lion (Leone d’Oro) | |
|---|---|
| Presented by | Venice Film Festival |
| Location | Venice |
| Country | Italy |
| First awarded | 1949 |
Il Leone d’Oro (English: The Golden Lion) is the highest prize given to a film at the Venice Film Festival. The prize was introduced in 1949 by the organizing committee and is now regarded as one of the film industry's most distinguished prizes. In 1970, a second Golden Lion was introduced; this is an honorary award for people who have made an important contribution to cinema.
The prize was introduced in 1949 as the Golden Lion of St. Mark (the winged lion which had appeared on the flag of the Venetian Republic).[1] Previously, the equivalent prize was the Gran Premio Internazionale di Venezia (Grand International Prize of Venice), awarded in 1947 and 1948. Before that, from 1934 until 1942, the highest awards were the Coppa Mussolini (Mussolini Cups) for Best Italian Film and Best Foreign Film.
No Golden Lions were awarded between 1969 and 1979. According to the Biennale's official website, this hiatus was a result of the 1968 Lion being awarded to the radically experimental Die Artisten in der Zirkuskuppel: Ratlos; the website says that the awards "still had a statute dating back to the fascist era and could not side-step the general political climate. Sixty-eight produced a dramatic fracture with the past."[2]
Contents |
| Year | Title | Director |
|---|---|---|
| 1947 | Siréna | Karel Stekly |
| 1948 | Hamlet | Laurence Olivier |
14 French films have been awarded the Golden Lion, more than that of any other nation. Of note is that Golden Lion awards tend to be presented to European men: 33 of the 54 winners were European men (including Soviet/Russian winners). However most of this bias is from before 1980: before this year only 3 of 21 winners were non-European. Since 1949 only a few women have ever won the Golden Lion for directing, Indian-born Mira Nair, U.S. born Sofia Coppola, German Margarethe von Trotta and Belgium's Agnès Varda, who both won more than two decades ago. Although numerous Americans have won honorary awards at the festival, Americans have only won the Golden Lion four times, with awards for John Cassavetes and Robert Altman (both times the awards were shared with other winners who tied), as well as Darren Aronofsky (the first sole American to win the award) and Sofia Coppola (the first American female to win the award).
*denotes first win
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