Angelina Jolie Moved To Tears As Maria Receives 8-Minute Standing Ovation At Venice Film Festival

Angelina Jolie was visibly emotional at the Venice Film Festival, where her latest film Maria reportedly received an extended standing ovation lasting eight minutes. For the event on Thursday evening, Angelina appeared in a custom-made beige gown designed by Tamara Ralph, complemented by a fur stole. When she began to tear up, her Maria co-star Pierfrancesco Favino was there to comfort her, with Angelina briefly leaning on his shoulder. Director Pablo Larraín also offered his support as she made her way up the stairs and Angelina graciously acknowledged the audience with a bow.

Footage from the event, widely circulated on social media, shows the actress wiping away tears.

In Maria, directed by Pablo Larraín, Angelina Jolie portrays the legendary opera singer Maria Callas. The film focuses on the final week of Callas’s life in 1977, showing her lonely existence in Paris. During this period, her butler, played by Pierfrancesco Favino, and her housemaid, portrayed by Alba Rohrwacher, are her only companions, concerned about her declining health and the tragic loss of her voice. While the film is set to debut on Netflix, its release date has not been confirmed yet.

In an interview with The Associated Press, Angelina Jolie shared how deeply she connected with the character, saying, “I felt such a privilege to feel like I got to know this woman and got to be inside her skin for a moment. I really care for her deeply. I think I’ll carry that like a friend.” She also reflected on her transformation into Maria Callas, noting, “When I put her big glasses on, and her Greek hair and I sat in my little robe as an older lady, I felt a (Maria) that felt like the private [Maria] that the world didn’t know. And I connected to her first and, and kind of loved her.”

Maria marks another collaboration between Larraín and writer Steven Knight, whose previous project, Spencer, premiered at Venice in 2021. The film tells the tumultuous, beautiful and tragic story of the life of the world’s greatest opera singer, relived and re-imagined during her final days in 1970s Paris, reports Variety.

Maria is the third installment in Larraín’s trilogy of films about iconic women, following Spencer and 2016’s Jackie, which focused on Jacqueline Kennedy in the wake of JFK’s assassination.