According to The BBC, “throughout the duration of the 68th Venice Film Festival, there were two words on the lips of every critic: Michael Fassbender.” As predicted, Fassbender has been awarded the Volpi Cup for Best Actor at the festival’s closing ceremony today, for his performance in Steve McQueen’s Shame. (I’m thinking his people must have been supremely confident in the win since he changed his schedule and skipped TIFF to attend.) The film itself lost out to the Russian film Faust by Alexsandr Sokurov. Hong Kong actress Deanie Yip won the prize for Best Actress for her performance as a dying family maid in A Simple Life. The Jury Prize went to Italian director Emmanuele Crialese for Terrafirma, a film about African immigrants washed up on the remote Italian holiday island of Linosa. The screenplay prize went to Greek director Yorgos Lanthimos’s Alps, while best director went to China’s Shanjun Cai, whose People Mountain, People Sea officially played as the competition’s surprise film.

Fassbender is having an amazing year. This spring’s critically acclaimed adaptation of Jane Eyre, directed by wunderkind Cary Fukunaga was followed by a critical and commercial success with his turn as Magneto in X-Men: First Class. He has three films coming out in the next couple of months, at least two which (Shame and A Dangerous Method) have the very real possibility of winning major awards. He’s just completed filming on Sir Ridley Scott’s alien something or other, Prometheus and is currently film indie auteur Jim Jarmush’s untitled vampire flick (with Jane Eyre co-star Mia Wasikowska). He has at least three films in the works after that. While there are those of us who have been following Fassy’s career for a number of years, today’s  win in Venice could be seen as not only a precursor for other awards still to come this year, but as a sign that he’s officially “arrived”.

Shame has just been picked up by Fox Searchlight for release later this year (and its attendant awards campaigning). A Dangerous Method will be released by Sony Pictures Classics November 23 in the US and next February in the UK. Soderbergh’s Haywire, which rounds out Fassbender’s trio of complete films will be released in January.

I imagine that he must have been looking down at his parents in some of these pics. In others, I love the fact that he’s gripping a cigarette and his lighter along with the cup. If I’d just won that award, I’d need a cigarette too. News Flash: Fassy is expected to attend the Shame premiere at TIFF Hopefully we’ll get some good pics!

Stay connected with us! Follow us on Twitter, fan us on Facebook or subscribe to our RSS feed. We’d love to hear from you.