The 69th annual Venice International Film Festival, was held from 29 August to 8 September 2012, at Venice Lido in Italy.
American filmmaker Michael Mann was the jury president for the main competition. Polish actress Kasia Smutniak was the Host of the opening and closing ceremonies. The Golden Lion was awarded to PietÃÂ by Kim Ki-duk.
The festival opened with The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mira Nair, and closed with The Man Who Laughs by Jean-Pierre Ameris.
The following films were selected for the main competition:
The following films were selected for the out of competition section:
The following films were selected for the Horizons (Orizzonti) section:
The following selection of restored classic films and documentaries on cinema were screened for this section:
The following rare films from the Biennale's Historical Archives were screened for this retrospective section:
The following films of the Official Selection were presented as Special Screenings:
The following films were selected for the Critics' Week:
The following films were selected for the Venice Days section:
The following collateral awards were conferred to films of the official selection:
The jury led by filmmaker Michael Mann originally was to award the top Golden Lion prize to Paul Thomas Anderson's The Master, along with the Silver Lion Best Director award and the Best Actor award. However, because of festival's new rule prohibiting pairing the Golden Lion with any other prizes, the jury was asked "to re-deliberate to remove" one of the awards for The Master, and the Golden Lion was awarded to Kim Ki-duk's PietÃÂ instead. On the other hand, the jury was planned to award the Coppa Volpi for the Best Actress prize to Jo Min-su, who acted Jang Mi-sun in PietÃÂ. However, because of the festival's new rule, the jury couldn't award a prize to Jo Min-su. In the official reception which was held after the festival was over, many juries, such as Samantha Morton and Peter Chan met Jo, saying that "Jo's acting was touching that changed my life. I shed tears of Jo's play."