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Pro-euthanasia film The Room Next Door wins top prize in Venice
Pro-euthanasia film The Room Next Door has won the Venice Film Festival’s best film award.
The feature film starring Tilda Swinton and Julianne Moore took the prestigious Golden Lion award on Saturday.
Earlier in the week, the Pedro Almodovar-directed film received an 18-minute standing ovation after it premiered at the festival – one of the longest in recent memory.
The film sees Swinton play a war correspondent suffering from terminal cancer. She asks her old friend, played by Moore, to be at her side as she takes her own life.
Almodovar said he made the film to communicate his belief euthanasia should be available around the world. “It is not a political issue, but a human issue,” the Oscar-winner Almodovar said. The film is his first feature film in English.
Almodovar also thanked Moore and Swinton for their performances.
“This award really belongs to them, it’s a film about two women and the two women are Julianne and Tilda.”
President of the jury, French actor Isabelle Huppert, said the film tackled important issues thoughtfully and without melodrama.
The Room Next Door is poised to be one of the most talked-about films of awards season.
The 81st edition of the world’s oldest film festival wrapped up on Saturday night, with international celebrities flocking to Venice’s red carpet.
Among the other award winners was Nicole Kidman who won the best actress award for her role in Babygirl, in which she plays a high-powered CEO putting her career and family on the line to begin an affair with her much younger intern.
Although Kidman was in Venice for the film’s premiere last week, the Australian actress did not attend the awards ceremony after learning her mother had died. “My heart is broken,” Kidman said in a statement read out onstage on her behalf. “I’m in shock, and I have to go to my family. But this award is for her. She shaped me, she guided me, and she made me,” she said.
France’s Vincent Lindon received the best actor award for French language film The Quiet Son, about a family torn apart by extreme-right radicalism.
The best director award went to American Brady Corbet for The Brutalist, recounting the tale about a Hungarian architect and Holocaust survivor played by Adrien Brody, who seeks to rebuild his life in the US.
Queer with Daniel Craig playing a gay drug addict, and the Maria Callas biopic Maria, starring Angelina Jolie as the celebrated Greek soprano did not get any awards.
The festival marks the start of the awards season.
[BBC]
The Cabinet of Ministers granted their concurrence to the resolution furnished by the Minister of Youth Affairs to appoint S. Achchudan of Special Grade of Sri Lanka Administrative Service, who is currently serving as an Additional Commissioner of Elections at the Elections Commission who is
recommended by the panel of interviewers to the post of Director General of the Sports Development Department with effect form 01.01.2026.
The Cabinet of Ministers granted approval to the proposal furnished by the Minister of Environment to publish the draft bill of the National Environment (Amended) Act in the government gazette notification and subsequently to submit the same to the Parliament for its concurrence.
Latest News
Cabinet nod to establish the Sri Lanka Industrial Transformation and innovation Authority
Approval was granted by the Cabinet of Ministers at the cabinet meeting held on 17-03-2025 to establish a single, more effective institution by merging the Industrial Development Board, the National Entrepreneurship Development Authority and Small Business development Division under the Ministry of Industry and Entrepreneurship Development to provide industrial and enterpriser development services in a more organized and efficient manner.
Accordingly, the Ministry of Industry and Entrepreneurship
Development has initiated the establishment of the Sri Lankan Industrial Transformation and Innovation Authority with the objective of minimizing duplication of work, strengthening the provision of institutional services, and building a national integrated platform for industrial and transformation, entrepreneurship promotion and export-oriented enterprise development under a three phase framework of conceptualization, strategic planning and implementation.
Action is being taken at present to obtain the necessary technological assistance under the Policy based loan program of the Asian Development Bank.
Accordingly, the Cabinet of Ministers has approved the proposal presented by the Minister of Industries and Entrepreneurship Development to take further action according to the proposed draft concept framework regarding the ‘the Sri Lanka Industrial Transformation and innovation Authority.
S. Achchudan appointed as Director General of the Sports Development Department.
Amendment of the National Environment Act No. 47 of 1980
Tax relief for Dates received as donations or gifts for Ramadan
Cabinet nod to establish the Sri Lanka Industrial Transformation and innovation Authority
Temporary employment of Sri Lankan labour in the State of Israel
Cabinet approves liquidation of Sahasya Investment Company
‘Dates have the highest sugar content to fight Coronavirus’
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