- Highlights
by Roberta De Rossi
A Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement in conscious cinema
Brooke, a strong-willed elderly woman, and Nelson, a middle-aged man adrift after his divorce, meet by chance and set off from Chicago to New York to return a lost homing pigeon. The journey gives rise to an unexpected friendship and forces them to confront loneliness, family ties and the possibility of starting over. Written by Kata Wéber, Mundruczó’s partner in life and art, the road movie reunites the director, screenwriter and Ellen Burstyn after Pieces of a Woman. The recipient of the 2026 Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement, Burstyn shares the screen with Taika Waititi, the New Zealand director and star of Jojo Rabbit (2019).
Hungarian film and theatre director Kornél Mundruczó (Gödöllő, Hungary, 1975) brings bodies and families in crisis to the screen, pushing drama into physical, visionary and unsettling territory. After Delta (2008), winner of the FIPRESCI Prize at Cannes, he won Un Certain Regard with White God (2014). Pieces of a Woman (2020), his English-language debut, competed at Venice and earned Vanessa Kirby the Coppa Volpi for Best Actress. It was followed by Evolution (2021) and At the Sea (2026), presented in Competition at Berlin.
