El Principe by Chilean director Sebastián Muñoz has won the thirteenth annual Queer Lion prize at the 76th annual Venice Film Festival in Italy.
The three-person jury announced the winner on Thursday. Nine films competed for the prize which recognizes films with queer elements playing at the festival.
This is the first time a Chilean film has won the prize.
“El Príncipe is a passionate portrait of life in a Chilean prison on the eve of [Salvador] Allende’s rise to power in 1970,” the judges wrote. “The savage brutality of prison life is contrasted by [the] intensely emotional relationships between prisoners. Led by a towering Alfredo Castro, the excellent ensemble cast give stirring performances of a powerful script which conveys the paradoxical acceptance of gay attachments in prison at a time when it was not socially acceptable. Sebastián Muñoz’s directorial debut is a bold and erotically charged exploration of recent history which reveals an unexpected tenderness at its heart.”
The film, based on a novel written by Mario Cruz in the early 70s, is Muñoz’s directorial debut.
The Venice Film Festival concluded on Saturday.
