Paul Dano's 'Wildlife' Wins Best Film in Turin

The actor's directorial debut took home the top prize at the prestigious Italian festival.


Paul Dano’s directorial debut Wildlife won best film at the 36th edition of the Turin Film Festival. Turin’s competition lineup this year featured a variety of films from around the world, including several first or second features.


Wildlife stars Jake Gyllenhaal, Carey Mulligan and Ed Oxenbould. The award comes with a prize of $20,000.


Based on the book by Richard Ford, with a screenplay by Dano and Zoe Kazan, the film is a coming-of-age story about a teenage boy who must deal with his parent’s dissolving marriage when his father temporarily abandons them. The film premiered in Sundance earlier this year.


Chinese director Jia Zhangke chaired the international jury, whose members also included Marta Donzelli, Miguel Gomes, Col Needham and Andreas Prochaska.


Other big winners included David Nawrath’s Atlas, which won the Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo Award. The Jury’s special mention prize went to Hungarian director Gabor Reisz for his film Bad Poems.


Grace Passo won best actress for her role in Andre Novais Oliveira’s film Temporada. And Rainer Bock (Atlas) and Jakob Cedergren (The Guilty) shared the prize for best actor.


The Guilty also took home the prize for best screenplay for Emil Nygaard Albertsen and Gustav Moller. Director Moller also won the audience award for world drama in Sundance for his debut film, a thriller about a police officer who must race against time to save a kidnapped woman. The film is Denmark’s Oscar entry for best foreign language picture.


And Turin’s audience award was split between The Guilty and Nos Batailles by Guillaume Senez.


In other prizes, Homo Botanicus by Guillermo Quintero won best documentary. The special jury prize for international documentary went to Unas Preguntas by Kristina Konrad. Best Italian documentary went to In Questo Mondo by Anna Kauber. And the Italian special jury prize for documentary went to Il Primo Moto Dell’Immobile by Sebastiano d’Ayala Valva.


And the FIPRESCI Award went to Greek film Pity by Babis Makridis.


The 36th edition of the Turin Film Festival concludes on Sunday with a special day of screenings in tribute to Bernardo Bertolucci.