{"id":206051,"date":"2025-09-06T22:17:10","date_gmt":"2025-09-06T22:17:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/206051\/"},"modified":"2025-09-06T22:17:10","modified_gmt":"2025-09-06T22:17:10","slug":"alexander-payne-on-not-giving-voice-of-hind-rajab-top-prize","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/206051\/","title":{"rendered":"Alexander Payne on Not Giving ‘Voice of Hind Rajab’ Top Prize"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tAfter awarding this year\u2019s Golden Lion<\/a> for best film to Jim Jarmusch\u2019s \u201cFather Mother Sister Brother<\/a>,\u201d Venice Film Festival<\/a> jury president Alexander Payne<\/a> faced a flurry of questions from journalists about the decision. Many had expected Kaouther Ben Hania\u2019s Gaza drama \u201cThe Voice of Hind Rajab<\/a>,\u201d which received a tearful 22-minute standing ovation<\/a> at its premiere and was ultimately awarded the second-place grand jury prize, to be a shoo-in for the festival\u2019s top award.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThat\u2019s the unfair thing of being at a festival, is having to say this is better than that. It\u2019s not,\u201d Payne said diplomatically at a press conference following the awards ceremony on Saturday. \u201cAs a jury, we treasure both of those films equally, each for its own reason. And we wish both of those films a long and important life, and we hope that the support of the awards we\u2019ve given tonight will help them, each in its own way.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tHe continued: \u201cLook, if we had voted the day before, the day later, it might have been different \u2026 As I say, we treasure and value and protect both films equally in our hearts. And if one had to receive one prize [over] the other, it\u2019s for .000001% of having to make some kind of decision.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tPayne\u2019s fellow jury members during this year\u2019s festival included Oscar-nominated Brazilian actress and writer Fernanda Torres (\u201cI\u2019m Still Here\u201d), prominent Iranian auteur Mohammad Rasoulof (\u201cThe Seed of the Sacred Fig\u201d), Palme d\u2019Or-winning Romanian director-writer-producer Cristian Mungiu (\u201c4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days\u201d), French director St\u00e9phane Briz\u00e9 (\u201cOut of Season\u201d), Italian director Maura Delpero (\u201cVermiglio\u201d) and Chinese actor and producer Zhao Tao (\u201cCaught by the Tides\u201d).<\/p>\n

\n\tPayne was then asked about a rumor floating around social media that one of his jurors had threatened to quit due to disagreements over the festival\u2019s top prizes. He denied that this happened, saying: \u201cOne of my jurors threatened to quit? I did?! No, did someone threaten to quit? No. I think we know \u2026 not to believe everything we read online.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tSee the full list of Venice Film Festival award winners here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After awarding this year\u2019s Golden Lion for best film to Jim Jarmusch\u2019s \u201cFather Mother Sister Brother,\u201d Venice Film…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":206052,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[101618,171,106076,113352,67,132,68,30989],"class_list":{"0":"post-206051","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-alexander-payne","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-father-mother-sister-brother","11":"tag-the-voice-of-hind-rajab","12":"tag-united-states","13":"tag-unitedstates","14":"tag-us","15":"tag-venice-film-festival"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115159672063642627","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206051","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=206051"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206051\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/206052"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=206051"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=206051"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=206051"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}