The 67th annual Venice International Film Festival, was held from 1 to 11 September 2010, at Venice Lido in Italy.
American filmmaker Quentin Tarantino was the jury president for the main competition. The Golden Lion was awarded to Somewhere by Sofia Coppola.
Chinese-Hong Kong filmmaker John Woo received the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement during the festival.
In a break with tradition of limiting a film to receiving no more than one major award, the Special Jury Prize and the Volpi Cup for Best Actor (Vincent Gallo) went to the same film, Jerzy Skolimowski's Essential Killing. In the past, no one film had been given two major awards. Representing the jury, American director Quentin Tarantino appealed to Festival head Marco Müller to alter the rules. This rule change continues to be upheld for future editions of the Festival. Following the Festival, Italian film critic Paolo Mereghetti criticized the decisions that the jury made in awarding prizes, and singled out Tarantino, accusing him of favoritism, which he denied.
The festival opened with Black Swan by Darren Aronofsky, and closed with The Tempest by Julie Taymor.
The following films were selected for the main competition:
The following films were selected to be screened out of competition:
From 2010 on, this section, dedicated to new trends in world cinema, has opened itself to all "extra-format" works, while four new awards have been established for it.
The following films, representing "new trends in Italian cinema", were screened in this section:
The following films were shown as part of a retrospective section on Italian comedy, titled The State of Things, spanning the years 1937 to 1988.
The following films were selected for the 25th International Film Critics' Week:
The following films were selected for the 7th edition of Venice Days (Giornate Degli Autori) autonomous section:
Starting with the 67th edition of the festival, four new awards were established for the Orizzonti section: the Orizzonti Award (for feature films), the Special Jury Orizzonti Prize (for feature films), the Orizzonti Award for Short Experimental Films and the Orizzonti Award for Short/Medium-length Films.
The Golden Lion was won by Somewhere, directed by Sofia Coppola, a film based in part on Coppola's childhood as the daughter of acclaimed American director Francis Ford Coppola. Quentin Tarantino, the president of the jury that awarded the prize, hailed the film saying, "it grew and grew in our hearts, in our minds, in our affections". The jury's decision was unanimous. Upon receiving the award, Coppola paid credit to her father for "teaching me". The Russian film Silent Souls and the Chilean film Post Mortem had been considered favorites for the award.
The following collateral awards were conferred to films of the official selection: