27th Venice International Film Festival

27th Venice International Film Festival

Location	Venice, Italy
Founded	1932
Awards	Golden Lion: The Battle of Algiers
Festival date	28 August – 10 September 1966
Website	Website
Venice Film Festival chronology
28th 26th

Director Gillo Pontecorvo at a press conference in the Venice International Film Festival

The 27th annual Venice International Film Festival was held from 28 August to 10 September 1966. ^[1]

Italian writer Giorgio Bassani was the Jury President. The Golden Lion winner was The Battle of Algiers , directed by Gillo Pontecorvo.

Jury

• Giorgio Bassani, Italian writer - Jury President ^[2]
• Lindsay Anderson, British director and film critic
• Luboš Bartošek, Czechoslovakian film historian
• Michel Butor, French writer and poet
• Joris Ivens, Dutch filmmaker
• Lewis Jacobs, American filmmaker
• Lev Kuleshov, Soviet filmmaker

Official selection

The following films were selected to be screened: ^[3]

In Competition

English title	Original title	Director(s)	Production country
Almost a Man	Un uomo a metà	Vittorio De Seta	Italy
Au hasard Balthazar		Robert Bresson	France
The Battle of Algiers	La battaglia di Algeri	Gillo Pontecorvo	Italy, Algeria
Chappaqua		Conrad Rooks	United States
Les Créatures		Agnès Varda	France
Fahrenheit 451		François Truffaut	France, United Kingdom
The First Teacher	Первый учитель	Andrey Konchalovskiy	Soviet Union
The Guest	Atithi	Tapan Sinha	India
The Game Is Over	La Curée	Roger Vadim	France, Italy
The Search	La Busca	Angelino Fons	Spain
Night Games	Nattlek	Mai Zetterling	Sweden
The Wild Angels		Roger Corman	United States
Yesterday Girl	Abschied von gestern	Alexander Kluge	West Germany

Out of Competition

English title	Original title	Director(s)	Production country
The Big City	A Grande Cidade	Carlos Diegues	Brazil
Buster Keaton Rides Again		John Spotton	Canada
Change of Life	Mudar de vida	Paulo Rocha	Portugal
The Climber	Sticenik	Vladan Slijepcevic	Yugoslavia
Courage for Every Day	Každý den odvahu	Evald Schorm	Czechoslovakia
Cul-de-sac		Roman Polanski	United Kingdom
The Drifter		Alex Matter
The Face of Another	Tanin no kao	Hiroshi Teshigahara	Japan
Farewells	Het afscheid	Roland Verhavert	Netherlands
The Female Soldier	La soldadera	José Bolaños	Mexico
Francesco di Assisi		Liliana Cavani	Italy
I Was Happy Here		Desmond Davis	United Kingdom
The Taking of Power by Louis XIV	La prise de pouvoir par Louis XIV	Roberto Rossellini	France

Official Awards

Main Competition

• Golden Lion: The Battle of Algiers by Gillo Pontecorvo
• Special Jury Prize:
  • Yesterday Girl by Alexander Kluge
  • Chappaqua by Conrad Rooks
• Volpi Cup for Best Actor: Jacques Perrin for Un uomo a metà
• Volpi Cup for Best Actress: Natalya Arinbasarova for The First Teacher

Independent Awards

FIPRESCI Prize

• The Battle of Algiers by Gillo Pontecorvo

OCIC Award

• Au hasard Balthazar by Robert Bresson
  • Honorable Mention: Yesterday Girl by Alexander Kluge

• Special Prize:
  • The War Game by Peter Watkins
  • Ha-Yeled Me'ever Lerechov by Yosef Shalhin

Lion of San Marco

• Memorandum by Donald Brittain and John Spotton
• Testa di rapa by Hermína Týrlová and Giancarlo Zagni ^[4]
• Best Film about Adolescence: Ritzar bez bronya by Borislav Sharaliev
• Best Documentary: Le mistral by Joris Ivens
• Best Documentary - Television: Storm Signal by Robert Drew

• Grand Prize:
  • Hectorologie   [ d ] by Yves Plantin and Alain Blondel
  • Rodzina czlowiecza by Wladyslaw Slesicki
  • The Girl and the Bugler by Aleksandr Mitta

Plate 'Lion of San Marco'

• The Ivory Knife: Paul Jenkins at Work by Jules Engel
• Best Experimental Film: L'ultimo by Vittorio Armentano
• Best Sport Film: Hockey by Mica Milosevic
• Best Children's Film: The Kind-Hearted Ant by Aleksandar Marks & Vladimir Jutrisa
• Best Animated Film: Chromophobia by Raoul Servais
• Cultural and Educational Film: Comment savoir by Claude Jutra
• Film about Architecture: Helioplastika by Jaroslaw Brzozowski

• Plate:
  • The Animal Movie by Grant Munro and Ron Tunis
  • Jemima and Johnny by Lionel Ngakane
  • Physics and Chemistry of Water by Sarah Erulkar
  • Ptaci kohaci by Jirí Torman
  • Documentary - Contemporary Life/Social: Labanta negro by Piero Nelli
  • Recreative Children's Film: Little Mole, for the episode Krtek a raketa by Zdeněk Miler
  • Children's Film - Educative-Didactical: Alexander and a Car without the Left Headlight by Peter Fleischmann
• Honorary Diploma:
  • La fiaba di Tancredi by Velia Vergani
  • Tribunal by Herbert Seggelke
  • Willem de Kooning, the Painter by Paul Falkenberg and Hans Namuth
• Jury Hommage: Robert Bresson
• Award for best interpretation: Ritzar bez bronya by Oleg Kovachev

References

1. "The 1960s" . Retrieved October 7, 2013.
2. "Juries for the 1960s" . Retrieved October 7, 2013.
3. "27. Mostra Internazionale del Cinema". labiennale.org . Retrieved 15 June 2025.
4. "Farewell to Giancarlo Zagni- worked with Visconti" . Retrieved October 7, 2013.

External links

• Official website
• Venice Film Festival 1966 Awards on IMDb