Spanish-Chilean filmmaker Théo Court was the winner of the Best Director Award in the Orizzonti competition at the 76th edition of the Venice Film Festival for his second feature film White on White / Blanco en blanco.
Starring actor Alfredo Castro (Tony Manero, Rojo), White on White is set in the prelude to the twentieth century, and follows Pedro as he arrives in Tierra del Fuego—a violent, unforgiving place—to photograph the wedding of a powerful landowner named Mr. Porter. His future wife, still a child, becomes an obsession for Pedro. In an attempt to capture her beauty he betrays the forces of power that dominate these lands. His betrayal is discovered and he is punished. Unable to escape, Pedro is instead forced to become a complicit participant in a new society being built through the genocide of the Selknam people.
Court was born in Ibiza in 1980 from Chilean parents, Théo Court lived 16 years in Madrid before moving to the Chilean countryside. In 1999 he studied photography at the School of Professional Photography EFTI, in Madrid. In 2000 he moved back to Chile where he began his film studies at the Universidad Arcis in Santiago de Chile. He attended the International Film and TV School of San Antonio de los Baños, in Cuba from 2002 to 2004.
Additionally, the Venice Classics Award for Best Documentary on Cinema was presented to the Brazilian film Babenco - Tell Me When I Die / Babenco - Alguém tem que ouvrir o coração e dizer: parou by Bárbara Paz.
The 76th edition of the Venice Film Festival took place August 28 - September 7 in Italy.
