Audrey Diwan’s Abortion Drama Triumphs At Venice Film Festival

Audrey Diwan’s Happening (“L’Événement”), about a woman seeking an abortion to continue studying, has won the top prize at the Venice Film Festival.

Set in 1960s France, the film’s triumph comes only a matter of weeks after the controversial ruling in Texas that banned the termination of unwanted pregnancies after six weeks.

Based on an autobiographical novel by Annie Ernaux, the story focuses on a young woman who seeks a termination despite both the health and legal risks. “I did this movie with anger, with desire, with my belly, my guts, my heart and my head,” said Diwan as she accepted the award.

Parasite director Bong Joon-Ho led the jury that chose Diwan’s film for the top prize which last year went to Nomadland. The Silver Lion – the second prize – went to Italian director Paolo Sorrentino’s The Hand of God, a semi-autobiographical film about his youth in the southern city of Naples.

A “quietly devastating sophomore feature”

Writes Guy Lodge in Variety: “Audrey Diwan’s quietly devastating sophomore feature is the latest in an ongoing run of tough, emotionally intelligent art films dealing frankly with the subject of abortion access: It earns its place in the company of Cristian Mungiu’s 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, Eliza Hittman’s Never Rarely Sometimes Always and Mahamet Saleh-Haroun’s recent Lingui.”

Says David Rooney in The Hollywood Reporter: “Happening is often a tough watch, compassionate but brutally honest, and almost breathless in its chronicle of a struggle that has obviously stayed with the author for decades. Diwan’s choice to de-emphasise the conventional period trappings quietly underlines the seriousness with which she links the past to the precarious present — with abortion still illegal in many countries and under persistent threat in others. The film serves as both a transfixing drama and an urgent reminder of the need to protect women’s reproductive rights.”

Other awards this year included New Zealand’s Jane Campion picking up the best director award for The Power of the Dog, Penelope Cruz winning best actress for Parallel Mothers, and Filipino actor John Arcilla taking home best actor for crime thriller On the Job: The Missing 8. Elsewhere, Maggie Gyllenhaal, was awarded the best screenplay prize for The Lost Daughter, which stars British actress Olivia Colman.