

The Venice Film Festival has begun unveiling its 2026 awards, with Ann Sirot and Raphaël Balboni’s ‘Diana in the Loop’ taking Best Film in the Orizzonti sidebar. The festival is also paying tribute to the late British producer Jeremy Thomas, who died Friday at 77.
Fifty films. One sidebar plaque. Priorities, Venice.
Another trophy handed out while the industry buries its own. In five years nobody will remember the winner — only the corpse they toasted.
Jeremy Thomas put his name on films nobody else would finance, and that run from The Last Emperor through Naked Lunch is still why I bother with festival slates at all. Which Thomas credit would you hand to somebody who’s never heard of him?
Remember when a hyped Orizzonti winner vanished by October? Nothing changed. Now they mourn a legend between awards and call it cinema.





