As she struck a pose, it started raining, and later, during the screening itself, a bolt of lightning struck the theatre and caused a power outage that affected the projector. When the film resumed a good 10 minutes later, there was cheering in the aisles, and at the end, an eight-minute standing ovation. The Best Venice Film Festival Looks Of All Time Gallery 27 Photos View Gallery3. Barbera replied that he was “fully against the idea of quotas” and found it “offensive”. In the end, Todd Phillips’s Joker, a film which had generated frenzied debate about incel culture and violence, scooped Venice’s top prize, while Polanski was the runner-up and landed the Grand Jury Prize.