The President’s message said, in part:
“The high awards of the Venice Film Festival are not only your own professional triumph but testimony to the tremendous creative potential of the Russian cinema and its dynamic development today.”
Andrei Zvyagintsev’s The Return was the third Russian film to win the Golden Lion. Andrei Tarkovsky received it with Ivan’s Childhood in 1962, and Nikita Mikhalkov with Urga in 1991.