The 2015 Venice Film Fest, which runs Sept. 2-12, will pay tribute to American director Brian De Palma.
De Palma will receive the festival’s Jaeger-LeCoultre Glory to the Filmmaker Award, dedicated to “personalities who have made particularly original contributions to contemporary cinema.”
Festival director Alberto Barbera said: “The child of an artistic era (the ‘70s) full of innovative ferment, Brian De Palma has made a name for himself as one of the most skillful directors in constructing perfect narrative mechanics with great creative freedom, experimenting with new technical solutions, rejecting the classic rules of the language, abandoning himself to aesthetic virtuosity, and celebrating his favorite authors.”
He added: “De Palma’s cinema is playful to the nth degree; it is a pleasure for the eyes and at the same time a game that tantalizes the cinephile. He has never lost the curiosity of the experimenter as he reinvents the already-seen, and when it comes to constructing and manipulating images, this fundamental trait makes De Palma one of the greatest innovators who came of age in the shadow of the New Hollywood.”
The award will be given to De Palma on September 9 in the Sala Grande of the Palazzo del Cinema. Following the ceremony, the festival will present the world premiere, out of competition, of the documentary “De Palma,” which is directed by Noah Baumbach and Jake Paltrow. The film grew out of the time the two directors’ have spent with De Palma over more than 10 years, in which they chronicle De Palma’s six-decade long career, his life and his filmmaking process.
