61st Venice International Film Festival


The 61st annual Venice International Film Festival was held between 1 and 11 September 2004. The festival opened with Steven Spielberg's The Terminal, and closed with Katsuhiro Otomo's Steamboy. The Golden Lion was awarded to the film Vera Drake, directed by Mike Leigh.
On this edition of the festival, a new independent section, Venice Days, has started "for free cinema, new talents and new stories". This section is organized by the ANAC and the API. Also in this edition, The Secret History of Italian Cinema was launched, a new section of the official selection, with the aim of restoring and systematically rediscovering sides of the Italian cinema that have been "forgotten, invisible, unknown or misunderstood". The retrospective was planned for four years, which was extended by a two-year retrospective called , followed by one edition of Italian Comedy Retrospective. The Fondazione Prada was the private sector partner of this series.

Juries

The following people comprised the 2004 juries:
Main Competition
Horizons
Venezia Cinema Digitale

In competition

The main competitive section of the official selection is an international competition of feature films running for the Golden Lion.

Out of competition

The following films of the official selection were screened as "out of competition":

Horizons

A section aiming to provide a picture of the new trends in cinema.

Short film competition

The following films, whose length does not exceed 30 minutes, were selected for the short film competition :

Venetian Nights

The following films were screened for the Venetian Nights section :

Venice Digital Cinema

A section intended to provide an overview of the new expressive possibilities granted by digital technologies.

The Secret History of Italian Cinema 1

A new retrospective section on Italian Cinema aiming to restore and systematically rediscover sides of the Italian cinema That Have Been "Forgotten, Invisible, Unknown Or Misunderstood". This first edition of the retrospective is titled Italian Kings of the B's.

Autonomous sections

Venice International Film Critics' Week

The following feature films were selected to be screened as In Competition for this section:

Venice Days

The following films were selected for the 1st edition of Venice Days autonomous section:

Awards

Official selection

The following Official Awards were conferred at the 61st edition:
Special Awards
Horizons awards
Digital Cinema Award
Short Film awards
The following official and collateral awards were conferred to films of the autonomous sections:
Venice International Film Critics' Week
The following collateral awards were conferred to films of the official selection: