The actor-turned-filmmaker Brady Corbet garnered the Silver Lion for Best Director

It does not often happen that an artistic work imposes itself on the viewer as a masterpiece from the very moment it is first shown. For example, those who first laid eyes on Las meninas did not understand why most of the canvas was blank; another canvas in reverse. And it is practially a given that any essentially modern work, because it breaks the rules of the natural habitat it comes from, is received with stones. Let’s say that in most cases, time is what adjusts the pieces, rearranges the canon, and most importantly, opens eyes. Casablanca (the most beloved movie ever, said Billy Wilder) is first and foremost a contradiction, a whim where all the world’s coincidences happened. Nothing turned out as planned, and the ending has prevailed as the essence of the classic. And The Godfather was for its author a concession that did away with all his dreams of revolution, to eventually be seen as the only possible and necessary revolution...[+]