Iranian filmmaker Amir Naderi is to receive the ‘Jaeger-LeCoultre Glory to the Filmmaker Award’ of the 73rd Venice International Film Festival (August 31-Sept 10), dedicated to a personality who has made an original contribution to innovation in contemporary cinema.
The prize has previously been awarded to filmmakers and actors including the Japanese filmmaker Takeshi Kitano, late Iranian filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami, American actor Al Pacino and American filmmaker Brian De Palma, Screendaily.com reported.
Naderi will be awarded the prize in a ceremony on September 5 before the world premiere of his new film ‘Monte’, which plays out of competition.
The film - shot on location in Italy in the mountains of the Alto Adige and Friuli regions - is set in 1350 and tells the story of a man who makes every attempt to bring the sunlight into his village, where his family is barely able to survive because of the prevailing darkness.
Naderi is among the most influential figures of Iranian Cinema since the 1970s. He entered the international spotlight with ‘Tangsir’ (1974), ‘Wait’ (1974), awarded the Jury Prize at the Cannes children’s film festival, ‘The Runner’ (1985) and ‘Water, Wind, Soil’ (1989), which both won the Golden Montgolfiere at Three Continents Festival in Nantes.
The prominent director moved to the US in the mid ’80s and made ‘Sound Barrier’, which won the Roberto Rossellini Critics’ Prize at the Rome Film Festival in 2005, and ‘Vegas: Based on a True Story’, which premiered in competition at Venice in 2008.
‘Monte’, starring Andrea Sartoretti and Claudia Potenza, marks the first film by Naderi to be set and directed in Italy.
The Venice Festival seeks to raise awareness and promote the various aspects of international cinema in all its forms: as art, entertainment and as an industry. The event also organizes retrospectives and tributes to major figures as a contribution towards a better understanding of the history of cinema.
