This year’s Biennale in Venice proved to be quite amazing again, featuring a fantastic line-up that made me feel sad as I couldn’t be there myself :(
(My only solace now is the Berlinale Film Festival which I’ll be able to attend next February.)

Ang Lee’s Brokeback Mountain was awarded the Golden Lion for Best Film. Ang Lee is the man for Westerns with a difference. (Think Ride with the Devil.) And of course, he is a brilliant director in general; The Ice Storm is one of my favourite movies ever made.

Speaking of The Ice Storm, Elijah Wood, who was in that film, also attended the Venice Film Festival to promote Everything Is Illuminated, the movie adaptation of Jonathan Safran Foer’s extremely well-written, hilarious and moving novel of the same title. The few trailers I’ve seen suggest that the film is just as weird and funny as the book and I hope it will find its way to a cinema near me very soon :)

Ang Lee was handed his award by none other than Miyazaki Hayao. If that wasn’t wonderful enough, Miyazaki Hayao received the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement! I am overjoyed that a European film festival acknowledged again what an outstanding film maker Miyazaki is.