Cecilia Miniucchi’s NO PLACE LIKE ROME takes two Kineo Awards at Venice Film Festival

The renowned Kinéo Awards presented two special prizes to writer/director Cecilia Miniucchi’s latest film, No Place Like Rome on August 30 at the 82nd Venice Film Festival (August 27-September 6). Italian actress Cristiana Capotondi received the Kinéo Award for Best Italian Actress in an International Film, while Miniuccchi received a special Kinéo Award for being the first and only female Italian director to begin and continue her career in the U.S. The awards highlight the anticipation for the love story, which is set to make it’s festival debut later this Fall.

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Cecilia Miniucchi’s No Place Like Rome at the Venice Film Festival

Capotondi received the honor for her first international role in English for No Place Like Rome in which she stars with Stephen Dorff, Radha Mitchell, and Sebastiano Pigazzi. Miniucchi’s previous work includes Life Upside Down, which starred Bob Odenkirk, Mitchell and Danny Huston, which launched from the 2022 Venice Film Festival, and was released by IFC in the U.S. Miniucchi’s first feature film, Expired, starred Samantha Morton, Jason Patric and Teri Garr, and debuted at the Sundance Film Festival, and earned her a Cannes Camera d’Or nomination.

Filmed in Rome, No Place Like Rome is a tribute to the city’s magical beauty especially around the Christmas holidays. The film follows a well-known photographer (Stephen Dorff), working for a New York based high-end magazine on an assignment in Rome, Italy. As the Christmas holidays approach, Connor, still broken from a nasty divorce from his ex-wife, prepares for his teenage son to join him. However, when he learns that his son will no longer come to Rome, he decides to stay through the holidays, alone, and accepts a new assignment that requires for him to photograph the parts and events of the city that are not commonly thought of during the festivities. With the help of his local assistant (Cristiana Capotondi) an attractive, extroverted museum curator, and a psychic’s unsolicited predictions, Connor starts his venture discovering many hidden gems of the Eternal City, while learning, with Scintilla, that maybe love can be found again.

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Additional Kinéo Award winners included:

Best Italian Film

The Boy With the Pink Trousers

Story and screenplay – Roberto Proia

Best Actor

Massimiliano Gallo (These Ghosts)

Best Actress

Ginervra Francesconi (Una Figlia)

Best Supporting Actor

Corrado Fortuna (Fuori)

Best International Film

Conclave

Director – Edward Berger

Best International Actress

Karla Sofia Gascon (Emilia Perez)

Best First Film

Incanto

Director – Pier Paolo Paganelli

Young Revelations Award

Andrea Arru (The Boy With the Pink Trousers)

Clotilde Esposito (Mare Fuori)

Best Italian Series

I Delitti del Bar Lume

Creator – Lucia Mascino

Best International Series Actor

Aras Aydin (Betrayal, The Night in the Heart, Perfect Strangers)

Best Italian Series Actress

Monica Guerritore (Inganno)

Kineo & GCHR (Global Campus of Human Rights) Award

Monica Guerritore

Revelation Award

Tatiana Luter

Best Youth Film

The Protagonist

Kineo 2025 Honoree

Morena Gentile (The Protagonist)