'The Best Offer' Wins Big at Italy's Nastri d'Argento Awards

Hoecks and Rush in "The Best Offer"

The English-language drama from Oscar winner Giuseppe Tornatore continued its roll with six awards at Europe's oldest film honors.

ROME – Giuseppe Tornatore’s The Best Offer was the big winner at the 67th Nastri d’Argento (Silver Ribbon) awards -- Europe’s oldest film honors -- taking home awards in six of the nine categories where it was entered, including Best Film and a prize for Best Score for iconic composer Ennio Morricone.

The film, directed by the Oscar-winning director of Nuovo Cinema Paradiso, tells the story of an eccentric auctioneer, played by Oscar-winner Geoffrey Rush,  who becomes obsessed with a reclusive heiress (played by Sylvia Hoeks). Before its Nastri d’Argento successes, the film previously dominated Italy’s David di Donatello awards. It has also been selected as Film of the Year by the upcoming Ischia Global Music & Film Festival.

’s Deborah Young praised The Best Offer as Tornatore’s “astutely-written return to English-language genre film, where is Baroque excesses get worked into the plot.”
Miele, the directorial debut from actress Valeria Golino, Reality from Matteo Garone, and Paolo Sorrentino’s La Grande bellezza (The Great Beauty) were the other big winners for the awards, which are voted on by Italy’s National Syndicate of Journalists.
Miele, which premiered in Cannes’ Un Certain Regard sidebar where it won the jury prize, stars Jasmine Trinca as a do-gooder who must confront an acquaintance’s deep-seeded melancholy. The film won awards in half of the six categories where it was nominated, led by a Best Actress honor for Trinca and the Best Emerging Director prize for Golino, best known as an actress for her role in Barry Levinson’s Rain Man.
Reality, which won a Cannes jury prize last year, Garrone’s second, recounts the story of a unremarkable fish seller (played by Aniello Arena in his silver screen debut) obsessed with appearing on a reality television program. The film won prizes in three of the four categories where it was nominated, including Best Screenplay and a Best Actor prize for Arena.
La grande bellezza, meanwhile, won in four of nine categories. The film, a portrait of contemporary Rome through the eyes of an ageing writer, played by Toni Servillo, led by both supporting actor prizes, for Carlo Verdone and Sabrina Ferilli, respectively.
It was previously announced that Bernardo Bertolucci’s Io e te (You and Me) and Servillo would be given honorary prizes at the event, held in Taormina’s famous Teatro Antico venue, the site of Sicily’s 59-year-old Taromina Film Festival.