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The Venice Film Festival has announced the recipient of this year’s Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement, and it’s none other than American actor, director, producer and Venice regular George Clooney.
Clooney has been on the Lido with multiple films over the years, including most recently with Netflix’s Jay Kelly.
“I’ve had so many extraordinary moments in Venice,” commented Clooney. “This festival is without question my favourite and to be given the Golden Lion is a tremendous honour. It also probably means I’m old, but I’ll take it.”
Festival director Alberto Barbera released the following statement: “In his triple capacity as actor, director, and producer, George Clooney is a complete and charismatic artist, impassioned and original, who has transformed a deep vocation into one of the most luminous parabolas of contemporary film.”
“An early career launched without shortcuts, with small roles in TV series and B movies until his major success as the star of the series ER, formed an actor who is able to inhabit the screen with disarming spontaneity,” he added. “He is endowed with the gift of making his characters seem not only credible but desirable, approachable, and human, thanks to his undeniable charm. But Clooney’s charisma is constructed on his credibility, not on his image, because his seductive side has never been merely aesthetic.”
Barbera continued: “A perfect combination of the star glamour of days gone by, remarkable professionalism, and modern sensitivity, the actor has crossed the genres with rare versatility: war movies with Three Kings and Syriana; thrillers with Michael Clayton; sophisticated comedies with Ocean’s Eleven and O Brother Where Art Thou?; science fiction with Gravity and Solaris; and bittersweet comedies with The Descendants, Up In the Air, and Jay Kelly. In each one of these movies, he calibrated his register while remaining true to himself: ironic and melancholy, fascinating and reflective, brilliant and capable of unexpected depth. He did the same in the nine films he made when he decided to go behind the movie camera, all of which reveal a demanding and generous concept of cinema. Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, Good Night and Good Luck, The Ides of March, and Suburbicon are examples of films that are refined, ambitious, and outside the rules and conventions of Hollywood cinema. They also reflect his other vocation, a commitment to social and humanitarian causes, making him a figure of absolute prominence in the universe of show business today.”
The line-up of the 83rd edition of the Venice Film Festival will be announced on 23 July. Maggie Gyllenhaal will preside over this year’s jury, which also includes Kaouther Ben Hania, Daniel Blumberg, Francesco Casetti, Xavier Giannoli, Shahrbanoo Sadat and Johnnie To.
This year’s Venice Film Festival will run from 2-12 September.