The Venice Biennale announced today that the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement at the 81st Venice Film Festival will be awarded to Sigourney Weaver.
The decision was made by the board of directors of the Biennale, chaired by Pietrangelo Buttafuoco, following the proposal of the director Alberto Barbera.
“I am truly honored to receive the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement from the Venice Biennale – she declared Sigourney Weaver in accepting the proposal –. This award is a privilege that I share with all the directors and collaborators I have worked with over the years. I proudly accept this recognition, which also celebrates all those who helped bring these films to life.”
The director Alberto Barbera said: “There are few rivals for an actress of Sigourney Weaver’s caliber. With a strong theatrical background, she has conquered the general cinema audience with Alien, by 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 victoriously holding her own against the male models who until at that time they had dominated in epic and adventure cinema. Not content with having paved the way for numerous other followers, the actress continued in the incessant search for her own identity which was constantly called into question, through choices that range from genre films to comedies, from auteur cinema to children’s films, escaping the labels that would have wanted her confined to the victorious icon of the Reagan period. In the role of an authentic collaborator rather than a simple tool moldable by the hands of a director, she contributed to the success of films by James Cameron, Paul Schrader, Peter Weir, Michael Apted, Roman Polanski, Ivan Reitman, Mike Nichols, Ang Lee and many others , managing every time to leave his charismatic presence with the indelible mark of a complex, sometimes contradictory, always authentic figure. Gifted with a great temperament, capable of moving delicately but without fragility, she has imposed an image of a confident and determined, dynamic and tenacious woman, not without letting a feminine sensitivity of intense magnetism shine through, with ever-changing nuances.
The Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement is a well-deserved recognition for a star who has been able to build bridges between the most sophisticated auteur cinema and films that communicate with the public in a frank and original way, without ever giving up being herself.”
We remind you that the other Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement will be awarded to Peter Weir.
Isabelle Huppert will be the president of the jury of the Competition.
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