September 11, 2021 (SIGNIS). At the 78th Venice Film Festival, the SIGNIS Jury decided to give the SIGNIS Award to the film Un autre monde by Stéphane Brizé (France, 2020).
A French executive manager at the climax of his career faces a double crisis. On the one hand, his marriage is about to collapse, and on the other, his company is asking him to implement a company layoff. While exposing the decision process, the film shows how the protagonist can regain humanity, dignity and find his way back to his family. Director Stéphane Brizé completes his film trilogy about the working and social conditions in France and Europe, combining a strong denunciation with a beautiful message of hope.
In addition, the SIGNIS Jury awarded a special Commendation to the film È stata la mano di Dio (The Hand of God, Itally, 2020) by Paolo Sorrentino.
With great talent, director Paolo Sorrentino brings joyful, passionate and dramatic moments of his own youth to the screen, mixing memories and fiction. The film shows how the tragic loss of both parents leads an adolescent to turn to the cinema to make sense of his life. We can see the hand of God in the seemingly casual way in which events follow one another or in the way unlawful acts are rightly condemned, but more profoundly in the way the protagonist follows his inner calling to tell everyday stories through film, bringing love, faith and hope into everyday life.
The members of the SIGNIS Jury were of Anca Berlogea-Boariu (Romania, President), Joachim Valentin (Germany), Jorge Villa Quintero (Cuba), Massimo Giraldi (Italy) and Sergio Perugini (Italy, Secretary).