VENICE – In addition to the official awards at Venice 83 — including the Orizzonti Prize for Best Screenplay, Best Actor for Riccardo Scamarcio for I figli della scimmia — Italian films received a range of other wins at the collateral awards and parallel sections of the 2026 Venice Film Festival.
The IWonderfull Grand Prize for Best Film at the Settimana della Critica was awarded to the Italian-French co-production Prima della guerra by Tommaso Usberti, “for its intense and vibrant direction, for the powerful and expressive talent of its lead actor, for its mastery of mise-en-scène, thanks to beautifully crafted images in which bodies, faces and gestures create an impressive physical tension — while provincial Italy becomes the stage for violent passions. A film that relies as much on silence as on words, where sound and music become separate battlefields for exploring themes of pressing contemporary relevance: toxic masculinity, impossible desire and the profound loneliness of the individual. A raw, evocative and deeply cinematic feature, classical and innovative at the same time, revealing a strong and distinctive directorial voice.” The film also won the Luciano Sovena Award for Best Producer.
Settimana della Critica also recognized several short films: the Best Short Film Award (Frame by Frame) went to E-I-E-I-O by Noemi Arfuso; the Special Mention to Dove le lacrime aspettano by Caterina Bertini and Blu Diego Fasoli; the Best Director Award (Stadion Video) to Revolver by Paoli De Luca, starring Ronga with the participation of Iaia Forte; and the Best Technical Contribution Award (Advista Studio) to Se mai le cose by Giulia Cosentino, which also won the Centro Nazionale del Cortometraggio Award.
The Francesco Pasinetti Award 2026 for Italian cinema, presented by the Italian Film Journalists’ Association (SNGCI), went to Ritorno a Buenos Aires by Marco Bechis. The award recognizes the best film and the best lead actors presented at the Venice International Film Festival of the Venice Biennale. Adriano Giannini won the Best Actor Award, for his role in Bechis’s film, while Vanessa Scalera received the Pasinetti Award for Best Actress for Il fuoco che ti porti dentro by Edoardo De Angelis. The journalists also awarded a Special Prize to La ragazza con la Leica by Alina Marazzi (Orizzonti), a film that makes innovative use of archival material, incorporating period newsreel footage in the story of Gerda Taro (Emilia Schüle), the courageous war photographer who died in the field in 1937, which also features her romantic relationship with Robert Capa (Aaron Altaras). “The choice of Ritorno a Buenos Aires,” the SNGCI emphasized, “draws attention, above all, to a film that goes beyond the purely cinematic value of a compelling narrative, reopening an important chapter in socially engaged cinema, in which the sense of Bechis’s strong and deeply personal commitment and the moral tension in his work once again play a central role.”
Edoardo De Angelis’s film, based on the novel by Antonio Franchini, won the collateral Bookciak award for best literary adaptation. Il fuoco che ti porti dentro won “for its original adaptation which, thanks to the screenplay by the director, Ilaria Macchia and Francesco Piccolo, moves away from the written page while remaining faithful to the power of its characters and story. By concentrating the story around a Christmas at the Franchini family home, the film intensifies the darkness and grotesque elements of the story. It gives cinema the memorable figure of this scourge of a mother, brilliantly brought to life by Vanessa Scalera.”
Il fuoco che ti porti dentro received the Soundtrack Stars Award 2026 for Best Score, while La Niña and Alfredo Maddaluno won the award for the music by Cam Sugar. The jury’s citation reads: “An artistic work where the tone of the music punctuates moods and discontent and perfectly underscores the atmosphere of tension where old resentments and unresolved misunderstandings are gradually emerging. The soundtrack in the musical project curated by Cam Sugar, which marks La Niña’s cinema debut, goes beyond a simple musical counterpoint becoming a protagonist in its own right, alongside the screenplay and the direction, full of small twists, by Edoardo De Angelis.”
The Carlo Lizzani Award – Film 2026 went to Balcanica by Nicola Sorcinelli, starring Matilda De Angelis, Babak Karimi, Ivar Wafaei and Giovanni Toscano. The film, presented in Competition at the Giornate degli Autori, is distributed by Fandango. The prize was awarded by the “courageous exhibitors” who will “adopt” the winning film and commit to promoting and supporting it in their cinemas: Lorenzo and Ronald Chammah for Écoles Cinéma Club in Paris; Gian Luca Farinelli for Cinema Modernissimo in Bologna; Giuseppe Gambina for Cinema Lumière in Ragusa; and Giancarlo Giraud and the Club Amici del Cinema for Sala d’Essai Don Bosco in Genoa.
The film also won the Audience Award at the Giornate degli Autori.
Roberto De Paolis’s film won the FEDIC Award, dedicated to Italian works that express the freedom of their authors and the independence of their cinematic research with particular force, with the following motivation: “A man kills his wife, remorseful, he unsuccessfully attempts to turn himself in. Total creative freedom in a film against violence toward women, presented as the surreal, tragicomic and biting satire of a society seemingly inured to violence. An explosive finale releases viewers from the laughter of the preceding scenes.”
The short film winner was SE MAI LE COSE by Giulia Cosentino, with the following motivation: “A comparison of generations, their contrasts highlighted with accomplished editing and the delicate use of archival images. How has our relationship with things and humans changed? The interplay of personal and collective memory features very natural dialogue and an abundance of poetry.”
Adriano Giannini received the “Roma Film Award – Il Lazio per il Cinema” from the Roma Lazio Film Commission Foundation, whose motivation is to highlight the career of an actor who has represented the artistic vitality of Rome and Lazio in contemporary film. According to the award citation, Giannini, present at the Venice Film Festival with two films, including L’Estranea by Paolo Strippoli, financed by the Lazio Region, “stands out for the care and rigour with which he brings his characters to life, with performances that convey the nuances of our times.”
Special Mention from the Airone della Laguna Award for the short film Il senso della Terra by Alessandro Ingaria and Simone Massi, produced with the support of the Short Film Fund of Film Commission Torino Piemonte. The jury described it as “a poetic and devastating representation of a human tragedy that breaks through the cold wall of statistics.”