‘Gravity’ director Alfonso Cuarón’s new movie ‘Roma’ wins top prize at Venice film festival
Venice has become the launch pad for the Oscars race with Hollywood heavyweights jostling for attention
Mexican director Alfonso Cuarón won the Golden Lion top prize at the Venice film festival Saturday for Roma, which critics called not merely a movie but “a vision”.
With its highly emotional story centred on an indigenous maid working for a middle-class family in Mexico City in 1971, it has been hailed as Cuaron’s most personal film - and also his best.
Cuaron told reporters that in an incredible coincidence “today is the birthday of Libo, the woman the movie is based on. What a present!”
The film industry bible Variety said Roma is likely to go down as a “masterpiece”.
“It is no mere movie -it’s a vision … where every image and every emotion is perfectly set in place,” said critic Owen Gleiberman.
The Italian press declared it “sublime” while for The Guardian’s Peter Bradshaw it was a “complete triumph”.