'The Room Next Door' tops Venice Film Festival. Nicole Kidman misses acting honor due to mom's death.

VENICE, Italy — “The Room Next Door,” Pedro Almodóvar’s English-language debut starring Julianne Moore and Tilda Swinton, topped the Venice Film Festival and was awarded its Golden Lion award Saturday.

VENICE, Italy — “The Room Next Door,” Pedro Almodóvar’s English-language debut starring Julianne Moore and Tilda Swinton, topped the Venice Film Festival and was awarded its Golden Lion award Saturday.

Nicole Kidman was awarded the best actress prize, for her raw and exposing portrayal of a CEO embroiled in an affair with an intern in “Babygirl,” but missed the ceremony due to the death of her mother.

“I arrived in Venice and found out shortly after that my beautiful, brave mother, Janelle Ann Kidman has just passed,” Kidman said in a statement read by “Babygirl” director Halina Reijn. “I’m in shock and I have to go to my family, but this award is for her. ... She shaped me and made me.”

The 81st edition of the festival came to a close Saturday, with the Isabelle Huppert-led jury bestowing top prizes to Brady Corbet, for directing the 215-minute post-war epic “The Brutalist” and Vincent Lindon, for his lead performance in “The Quiet Son.” Lindon plays a single father whose son is radicalized by the far right.

Maura Delpero’s “Vermiglio” won the Silver Lion award, the runner up prize. The Italian-French-Belgian drama is about the last year of World War II, in which a refugee soldier happens upon a large family.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/the-room-next-door-nicole-kidman-mothers-death-rcna170063

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