A documentary about the Sackler family, All the Beauty and the Bloodshed by the American Laura Poitras, was awarded a Golden Lion at the international film festival in Venice on Saturday. Actors Cate Blanchett and Colin Farrell won Golden Lions for their roles in respectively TR and The Banshees of Inisherin.
All the Beauty and the Bloodshed follows activist and photographer Nan Goldin, who takes on the Sackler family, who are responsible for the American opiate crisis with the production of the painkiller OxyContin. Goldin traces the Sacklers’ philanthropic ties, especially those with the art world: the name graces a range of renowned institutions, from the Guggenheim and Tate Modern to universities like Harvard and Oxford.
Poitras accepted the award by thanking the jury for recognizing the “documentary as a film” – it is the second documentary ever to win the most important Venetian film award. Alone Sacro Gra by Gianfranco Rosi (2013) went All the Beauty and the Bloodshed in front of.
The jury had a special prize for Iranian director Jafar Panahi and his film No Bears. Panahi was arrested by Iranian authorities in July and sentenced to six years in prison. He was already sentenced in 2010 for “propaganda against the Islamic Republic” when he was working on a film about the controversial re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad a year earlier.
Also read this report from Venice: At the Venice Film Festival, Timothée Chalamet visibly enjoys all the attention