Isabelle Huppert to receive Lifetime Achievement Award at Rome Film Fest

As previously announced, the Rome Film Fest, directed by Antonio Monda, will bestow its Lifetime Achievement Award to Martin Scorsese. Furthermore, this year the fest will give another Lifetime Achievement Award to French actress Isabelle Huppert.

The award will be presented by Italian actor Toni Servillo. Over the course of her career Isabelle Huppert worked with some of the greatest European and American filmmakers, such as Claude Chabrol, Jean-Luc Godard, Maurice Pialat, Marco Ferreri, the Taviani brothers, Marco Bellocchio, Michael Haneke, Andrzej Wajda, Michael Cimino and David O. Russell. The winner of international awards for her performances, including a Golden Globe for Paul Verhoeven’s Elle (2017), the Parisian actress will also attend an onstage conversation in the Close Encounters series and will comment on a series of clips selected from the films that influenced her life as an artist. “I am excited that the Rome Film Fest will celebrate an actress of extraordinary sensibility, sophistication and depth such as Isabelle Huppert – explained artistic director Antonio Monda – a magnificent humanistic performer who is always able to convey, even in difficult and dramatic roles, remarkable empathy for the characters she plays”.

The Close Encounters series will also feature onstage conversations with:

CATE BLANCHETT

Two-time Academy Award winner Cate Blanchett (The Aviator by Martin Scorsese, Blue Jasmine by Woody Allen) is one of the most extraordinary, intense and refined actresses of contemporary cinema, and since 1999, she was nominated seven times by the Academy. During her career Blanchett collected an extraordinary list of collaborations: from Steven Spielberg to Peter Jackson, from Wes Anderson to Ron Howard, from David Fincher to Steven Soderbergh, from Shekhar Kapur to Todd Haynes. In Rome, she will speak about her life as an artist as well as her dedication to social and environmental initiatives: in 2016 the United Nations High Commission for refugees nominated her a Goodwill Ambassador for her humanitarian commitment.

JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER

Novelist and author of essays Jonathan Safran Foer, one of the finest talents of world fiction, will attend a Close Encounter during the upcoming Rome Film Fest and will talk about his work and about the relationship between literature and cinema. Author of internationally acclaimed bestsellers, Safran Foer has examined both memory and current events in our contemporary society in “Everything is Illuminated” and “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close” (both novels were made into films), has explored ethical and environmental issues of extraordinary significance in the pages of “Eating Animals”, and later addressed the theme of family and identity today in “Here I Am”.

THIERRY FRÉMAUX

Renowned French film critic Thierry Frémaux, General Delegate of the Cannes Film Festival and Director of the Lumière Institute in Lyon, will meet the audience of the Rome Film Fest to discuss the significance of film festivals today and how they might evolve.

SHIRIN NESHAT

Iranian photographer and video-artist Shirin Neshat will be the protagonist of an onstage conversation at the MAXXI – the National Museum of 21^st Century Arts, organized in collaboration with Videocittà. After winning an award at the Venice Art Biennale in 1999, Shirin Neshat earned a Silver Lion for Best Director at the Venice International Film Festival in 2009 with her debut feature-length film Women without Men, adapted from the homonymous novel by Shahrnush Parsipur. Over the years, the artist has gained recognition thanks to her ability to describe the complex social conditions within the Islamic culture, turning her gaze to the role of women.

As previously announced, the Close Encounters will also feature directors, actors and leading figures in the world of art and culture, including Martin Scorsese, Sigourney Weaver, Giuseppe Tornatore, Pierre Bismuth. Furthermore, the conversations with cinema professionals will include cinematographers Luca Bigazzi and Arnaldo Catinari, and editors Giogiò Franchini and Esmeralda Calabria.