Greek Director Jacqueline Lentzou Wins Directing Award in Venice

Greek filmmaker Jacqueline Lentzou has won the Orizzonti Award for Best Director at the 83rd Venice International Film Festival for her second feature film, A Day in the Life of Jo: Chapter Phaedra.

Visibly moved as she accepted the award, Lentzou spoke about the challenges of making independent cinema today and thanked the jury for recognising the considerable risk she took to make the film.

“Stop killing children” was also her message as she referred to the killing of 15-year-old Alexandros Grigoropoulos by a police officer in Athens, an event that inspired her film.

“I did not prepare an acceptance speech. I will speak from the heart. And I will speak about the cinema that those of us who want to make free, independent films find increasingly difficult to make,” Lentzou said while accepting the award.

She thanked the jury for recognising the risk she took with the film and explained that the story drew inspiration from a real incident in her home country, Greece.

The film competed in the Orizzonti section of this year’s festival, which focuses on emerging trends and innovative voices in contemporary world cinema. It competed alongside 18 other films from around the world.

A film between reality and dreams

A Day in the Life of Jo: Chapter Phaedra also received the Edipo Re 2026 Inclusion and Sustainability Award, presented by an independent jury. The award recognises films that adopt an inclusive and sustainable approach, both in human and environmental terms.

Lentzou has developed a distinctive cinematic language centred on discovering poetry in seemingly ordinary situations and capturing small, almost imperceptible moments. Her latest work continues that approach while giving her emotions and experimentation greater freedom.

The film combines coming-of-age drama with supernatural elements. It tells a story of adolescence violently interrupted, emerging from the harsh realism of life.

Its emotional and multi-layered narrative unfolds within a cinematic world that embraces both the warmth of analogue, handmade filmmaking and the energy of experimentation. Together, these elements create a visually striking universe with a strong aesthetic identity.

Balancing realism with dreamlike elements, the film captures both the fragile tenderness and raw energy of adolescence and the painful unpredictability of life, which can overturn everything in a single moment.

Lentzou describes the film as “essentially an elegy for life, written in the language of dreams and music.”

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