It goes to the American actress Sigourney Weaver the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement at the 81st Venice International Film Festival (August 28 – September 7). The Venice Biennale announced it. The award was decided by the Biennale Board of Directors, chaired by Pietrangelo Buttafuocowho adopted the proposal of the director of the Exhibition, Alberto Barbera.
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Seventy-four years old, an extraordinary career that ranges from Woody Allen (a small role in Me and Annie) a Ridley Scott (Alien) to get to James Cameron (Avatar)but also the saga of Ghostbusters and a painful and powerful series like Listen to the forgotten flowers. Sseven Golden Globe nominations, winning in 1989 for Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama and Best Supporting Actress for Gorilla in the fog e A career womanbecoming the first actress ever to win two Golden Globes in the same year.
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“I am truly honored to receive the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement from the Venice Biennale,” said Sigourney Weaver in accepting the proposal. “This award is a privilege that I share with all the directors and collaborators with whom I have worked over the years. I proudly accept this recognition, which also celebrates all those who have contributed to bringing these films to life.” Director Alberto Barbera said: “An actress of Sigourney Weaver’s caliber has few rivals. With an important theatrical background, she has conquered the general cinema audience with Alienby Ridley Scott, quickly becoming an emblematic figure of the 80s, during which she coined the image of an unprecedented heroine for the action genre, capable of successfully holding her own against the male models who until then had dominated epic and adventure cinema”.
“Not content with having paved the way for numerous other epigones – Barbera recalls – the actress continued in her incessant search for her own identity, constantly questioned, through choices that range from genre films to comedies, from auteur films to children’s films, escaping the labels that would have confined her to the victorious icon of the Reagan era. In the role of an authentic collaborator rather than a simple instrument that could be shaped by the hands of a director, she contributed to the success of the films of James Cameron, Paul Schrader, Peter Weir, Michael Apted, Roman Polanski, Ivan Reitman, Mike Nichols, Ang Lee and many others, each time managing to impress on her charismatic presence the indelible mark of a complex, sometimes contradictory, always authentic figure. Gifted with a great temperament, capable of moving delicately but without fragility, she imposed the image of a confident and determined woman, dynamic and tenacious, not without letting a feminine sensitivity of intense magnetism shine through, with ever-changing nuances. The Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement is the deserved recognition of a star who has been able to build bridges between the most sophisticated auteur cinema and films that dialogue with the public in a frank and original way, without ever giving up being herself”.
The program of the 81st Venice International Film Festival of the Biennale di Venezia will be announced on July 23.
