Venice Jury Almost Over-Awards Paul Thomas Anderson's The Master ⇒

Matthew Belloni for The Hollywood Reporter:

Apparently during the jury’s first deliberations members decided to give The Master the top prize, as well as the Silver Lion directing award to Anderson and the acting award jointly to co-stars Joaquin Phoenix and Philip Seymour Hoffman. (Another international critics prize was also heaped on Master.)

But new festival rules apparently prohibit one film from garnering more than two major awards, so the jury was asked to re-deliberate to remove one of the awards. After what a source described as a heated session, the jury decided to take the Golden Lion away from Master and give it to [Kim Ki-duk’s] Pieta.

I like the spirit of this rule. Festival buzz certainly helps a film like The Master, but now there’s an international spotlight on a Korean filmmaker we weren’t talking about yesterday.