French cinema left the 73th Venice Film Festival , which ended on Sept 10, with three awards, after an edition where the strong French presence was noted, with 12 features (or majority productions) in the festival's different sections, three of which were in Official Competition.
German actress Paula Beer, discovered by François Ozon, who cast her in Frantz, impressed the jury with her performance in the film, for which she received the Marcello Mastroianni Award for Best Young Actress.
The quality of French documentary cinema was also noted; Claire Simon, produced by andolfi, received the Venice Classics Award for Best Documentary on Cinema for The Competition (in the Venice Classics section). Lastly, in the Orizzonti section, the Award for Best Screenplay was given to Wang Bing for his film Bitter Money, produced by French companies Gladys Glover and House on Fire.
The French films in Competition met with a fine reception in the international press. For Indiewire, Frantz is "Ozon's best film in years," while Variety praised A Woman's Life by Stéphane Brizé, describing the film as a "moving, beautifully modulated adapatation of Guy de Maupassant's novel." Last but not least, and still at Variety, Heal the Living " Katell Quillévéré's superb third feature is a wrenching medical drama that blends dazzling formal polish with rawest emotion."
Other highpoints of this 73th edition of the Venice Film Festival: Jean-Paul Belmondo received the 2016 Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement to a standing ovation at the Palazzo del Cinema. Sophie Marceau, with whom Belmondo shared billing in Joyeuses Pâques, in 1984, paid tribute to him, evoking "a popular star, all-round, multifaceted actor."
