Golden Lion goes to Danish film Woman Unknown, Volpi Cup to Mathilde Arcel

The Danish film Kvinde Ukendt, in English Woman Unknown, directed by May el-Toukhy, won the Golden Lion, the top prize of the Venice Film Festival, awarded on September 12, 2026. The jury was chaired by Maggie Gyllenhaal.

The same jury awarded the Volpi Cup for best actress to Mathilde Arcel, the lead of the film that won the Golden Lion. The film is set in Denmark in the immediate postwar period and was, among the titles initially announced in competition, the only one directed by a woman.

The double recognition — the Golden Lion to the film and the Volpi Cup to its lead actress — concentrates two of the main prizes of the 2026 edition of the Festival on a single title. It is a choice that places at the center of the awards list a work signed by a female director, in an edition in which, according to reports, this characteristic was isolated among the competition’s initial announcements.

The sources available on this awards ceremony — Il Post and Sky TG24 — both provide direct coverage of the awards ceremony of the Venice Biennale and agree on the names of the winners and on the jury’s presidency, without adding details on the reasoning behind the jury’s choice of the Danish film over the other titles in competition. Since these are accounts of the same ceremony, the news currently stems from a single origin; no further independent confirmation is available at the time of publication.

Left out of this reconstruction are the other awards given on the same evening, which do not appear among the facts reported by the cited sources. The complete picture of the awards list of the 83rd Venice Film Festival, beyond the two prizes documented here, cannot currently be verified with the sources available.