Venice's Prizes Follow Their Winners Home, and Not Always Gently

The Venice film festival closed with its awards, but two of those awards have since travelled — and the reception abroad has been considerably rougher than the ovation in the Sala Grande. According to the Guardian, the documentary NAZA, on Gaza, was met with a moment of stunned silence at its screening in the Palazzo del Cinema, after which the audience stood almost as one. Its directors have since faced what the paper describes as vitriol in Israel amid a febrile election campaign, including death threats.

A second Venice winner, the Iranian actress Laleh Marzban, has come under severe attack after dedicating her best newcomer prize to "the women of Iran". The Guardian reports condemnations from authorities at home over a speech delivered on an Italian stage. Marzban won for her portrayal of a woman held hostage by her father in Falling House.

Taken together, the two episodes describe something the festival circuit does not often advertise: that a prize given in Venice is a statement made in Rome's lagoon but received elsewhere, in jurisdictions with their own censors, courts and electorates. The Biennale's screening rooms are, for a fortnight, a place where films can be shown without consequence. The consequence arrives afterwards, by telephone and by decree, in the countries the films are about.