Global Courant
The Locarno Film Festival will pay tribute to Italian producer and director Renzo Rossellini by presenting him with a lifetime achievement award, organizers said on Thursday.
The award ceremony in the Swiss town’s Piazza Grande on Aug. 10 will be followed by a screening of Federico Fellini’s La città delle donne (City of Women, 1980), on which Rossellini served as a producer. On Aug. 11, Rossellini, whose half-sister is Italian star Isabella Rossellini, will take part in a festival panel conversation.
“As producer for master filmmakers of the caliber of Federico Fellini, Lina Wertmüller, Werner Herzog, and Francis Ford Coppola, but also as assistant director (for his father Roberto and, among others, François Truffaut and Claude Chabrol) and director in his own right, Renzo Rossellini has never ceased his quest to pass on his knowledge of the cinema, teaching generations of students and filmmakers with passion and commitment,” the Locarno festival said.
Giona A. Nazzaro, artistic director of the Locarno Film Festival, said: “Film is a tool for learning about the world: Renzo Rossellini has taught that lesson unstintingly, becoming a pivotal figure in modern cinema. His own love of film came from his family and has stayed with him throughout his life. Gifted with infallible instincts and led by his passion, he has left a deep and lasting mark. Today, celebrating a man of the cinema such as Renzo Rossellini is a way of paying tribute to what is most dear to us in the cinema itself.”
Locarno’s lifetime honor was created in 2011. Previous winners include Harrison Ford (2011), Alain Delon (2012), Jacqueline Bisset (2013), Harvey Keitel (2016), Dario Argento (2021), and Matt Dillon (2022).
Independent film pioneer Harmony Korine will also be honored at the Locarno festival with the Pardo d’onore Manor, the Leopard of Honor award, for “outstanding achievement in cinema.”
The 76th edition of the festival is set to run Aug. 2-Aug. 12.
