Eyes Wide Shut opened the 56th edition of La Mostra Internationale in Venice held from September 1 - 11, 1999. Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman, married couple in the film and in real life, were joined by the late Kubrick's wife Christiane for the opening ceremony. While the digitally censored USA version disappeared rather quickly from the top ten at the box office, European moviegoers are plunging into the total Kubrick experience with the uncut version.

Venice 99 came to a close with the screening of of Martin Scorsese's Il dolce cinema, the first part of a documentary on Italian cinema. Scorsese also had the honors of handing Jerry Lewis the Lifetime Achievement award.

The Jury was headed by President Emir Kusturica and included Arturo Ripstein, Marco Bellocchio, Maggie Cheung, Jonathan Coe, Jean Douchet, Shozo Ichiyama and Cindy Sherman.

CONCORSO - the feature film awards went to:

Golden Lion to the Chinese film Not One Less by Zhang Yimou
Jury Special Prize to The Wind Will Carry Us by Iranian Abbas Kiarostami
Best Actress to France's Nathalie Baye for her role in A Pornographic Liaison
Best Actor to Britain's Jim Broadbent for his role in Mike Leigh's Topsy-Turvy
Best Director to China's Zhang Yuan for Seventeen Years
Best Emerging Actor/Actress to Nina Proll for the Austrian film Nordland
Best First Film to Italy's Giovanni Davide Maderna for This is the Garden

The short film jury was headed by President Erick Zonca and included Hilke Doering and Andrea Occhipinti.

CORTO CORTISSIMO - the short film awards went to:

Silver Lion to Portrait of a Young Man Drowning by Teboho Mahlatsi
Special Mention to Se-tong by Heng Tang