8. Queer Lion Award to “Les Nuits d’été” by Mario Fanfani

In a parisian bistrot, Mario Fanfani, director of "Les nuits d'été", receives the 2014 Queer Lion from the hands of Sylvain Auzou (Giornate degli Autori - Venice Days); at the awards ceremony in Venice, the trophy was accepted on his behalf by one of the actresses of the movie, the wonderful Zazie de Paris

The pursuit of one’s own identity is always a revolutionary act! It is so for the main character when donning women’s clothing while maintaining his bourgeois beliefs; it is so for his wife, through her emancipation and pacifistic ideals; and it is so for all the other characters, each of them in their own personal way, in a queer movie that manages to mix tradition and transgression in a very elegant way

For these reasons, the Queer Lion jury, chaired by Alessandro Zan, and composed by Daniel N. Casagrande, creator of the award, and Marco Busato, general delegate of the cultural association CinemArte, bestows the 2014 Queer Lion Award for “Best Film with Homosexual Issues and Queer Culture” to Les nuits d’été, directed by Mario Fanfani, presentented in the 11th Giornate degli Autori/Venice Days sidebar.

The jury of the Queer Lion would like to express appreciation for the prsence of a very good number of movies with LGBT contents, within the 71st International Venice Film Festival. In addition to the 7 films in competition for the Queer Lion (The Smell of Us by Larry Clark, Les nuits d’été by Mario Fanfani, The Goob by Guy Myhill, Mita Tova – The Farewell Party by Sharon Maymon and Tal Granit, Métamorphoses by Christophe Honoré, Flapping in the Middle of Nowhere by Hoàng Nguyên Diep, Pasolini by Abel Ferrara), worth of being mentioned are: The Humbling by Barry Levinson, Taipei Factory II by Hou Chi-Jan, Cho Li and Hsieh Chun-Yi, Red Amnesia by Wang Xiaoshuai, Italy in a Day by Gabriele Salvatores.

Queer Lion 2014: Daniel N. Casagrande, Zazie de Paris, Marco Busato