66th Venice International Film Festival 66th Venice International Film Festival The 66th annual Venice International Film Festival, held in Venice, Italy, was held from 2 to 12 September 2009, with Maria Grazia Cucinotta serving as the festival's hostess. The opening film of the festival was "Baarìa" by Giuseppe Tornatore and the closing film was "Chengdu, I Love You" by Fruit Chan and Cui Jian. The international competition jury, chaired by Ang Lee, awarded the Golden Lion to "Lebanon" by Samuel Maoz. The international juries of the 66th Venice International Film Festival were composed as follows: Main competition (Venezia 66) Horizons (Orizzonti) Opera Prima ("Luigi de
The Master (2012 film) film that won the Golden Lion prize. A similar incident was rumored to have occurred at the festival in 2008, when Darren Aronofsky's "The Wrestler" was to be awarded both the Golden Lion and the Volpi Cup for Mickey Rourke's performance. The film received the former, with the latter being awarded to Silvio Orlando for his work in "Giovanna's Father". When asked about the last-minute shake-up over the award, Anderson replied, "I'm thrilled with whatever they want to hand over. I heard some of the scuttlebutt recently, but I'm just thrilled with what they hand over. And that's all." "The