Venice 83, Golden Lion goes to "Woman Unknown" by May el-Toukhy

The 83rd Venice International Film Festival closed on September 12, 2026, awarding the Golden Lion for best film to “Woman Unknown”, directed by May el-Toukhy.

The same film won the Volpi Cup for best female performance, awarded to Mathilde Arcel. The Silver Lion - Grand Jury Prize was awarded to “Possible Love” by Lee Chang-dong. The winners’ list is reported by ComingSoon.it; the screening of the winning film, in Sala Darsena at 9:30 pm on September 12, appears in the Biennale’s official programme.

A fact worth more than a comment

“Woman Unknown” was the only one of the 21 films in competition directed by a woman: this is stated by ComingSoon.it. It is the most significant piece of information from the entire Venetian day, and not for symbolic reasons.

The composition of a competition is a decision made months earlier, by those who make the selection; the verdict is decided by a jury that chooses within that selection. The two things are measured separately. A ratio of one female director out of twenty-one titles describes the outcome of a selection process, not the jury’s opinion; the award describes the jury’s opinion, not the selection process. When the two coincide, as they did this year, the coincidence should be read for what it is: the jury awarded the film that, within the competition, occupied a statistically isolated position.

Today’s material does not contain data from previous editions of the Mostra, and for this reason we do not offer historical comparisons: any time series we have not verified is left out of the piece.

What the winners’ list we have includes

The documented awards are three: Golden Lion for the film, female Volpi Cup, Silver Lion - Grand Jury Prize. We do not have the rest of the winners’ list — direction, screenplay, male performance, parallel section awards — and we do not reconstruct it from memory. An incomplete list of awards presented as complete is an error that spreads quickly, because those who cite it in turn do not go back to the source.

It is worth noting the double award: the Golden Lion and the Volpi Cup going to the same title indicate a jury that recognized the film and its lead performer together, rather than spreading the recognitions across different works — a choice of concentration that is not the norm at major festivals, but one our material does not allow us to compare with past editions.

The festival as infrastructure

The re-screening of the winning film on the very evening of the awards ceremony, in a large venue and for the public, is an organizational detail that says a great deal about how festivals function today. The verdict does not close the event: it relaunches it toward paying audiences, within a matter of hours, when interest is at its peak. The Mostra awards prizes and, in the same movement, places the winning title in front of those who have not yet seen it.

What we do not know

We do not know the production nationality of “Woman Unknown”, nor its running time or plot: today’s material does not contain them. We do not know when the award-winning films will be released in theaters, in Italy or elsewhere, nor whether they already have distribution. We do not know how the jury was composed.

What can be said with certainty is that “Woman Unknown” leaves Venice with two of the most visible awards of the competition, and that “Possible Love” by Lee Chang-dong is the second title in the main winners’ list.