The Biennale di Venezia and Jaeger-LeCoultre are pleased to announce that The Master of Italian cinema Ettore Scola has been awarded the Jaeger-leCoultre Glory to the Filmmaker 2013 award, dedicated to a personality who has brought major innovation to contemporary cinema.
In regards to this acknowledgment to Ettore Scola, the Director of the Venice Film Festival Alberto Barbera declares: "From his beginnings as a satirical writer for Marc'Aurelio, to his last, wonderful tribute to his friend Federico Fellini, which will be presented in at the Venice Film Festival this year, Scola has earned recognition as one of the most important authors of Italian cinema. He has contributed significantly to its greatness and to the appreciation it enjoys around the world, first as a screenwriter and then as a director. This prize is a way to acknowledge our debt for the many gifts he has given us over the course of a lengthy and exemplary artistic career".
The C.E.O. of Jaeger-leCoultre Daniel Riedo declared: "Celebrating its 180th anniversary, Jaeger-LeCoultre has established itself as a major player in the watchmaking industry and as a true beacon of the spirit of innovation and invention, respected at the same time for upholding watchmaking traditions. There is a shared obsession between ground breaking cinematographic achievement and horological accomplishment. The fact that Jaeger-LeCoultre has always had an affinity with the 7th Art is doubtless because it is all about two worlds infused with creative effervescence and with a longstanding tradition of inspirational art combined with technological daring".
The prize will be conferred to Ettore Scola at the awards ceremony which will take place on September 6th at 4:45 pm in the Sala Grande (Palazzo del Cinema) during the 70th Venice Film Festival (Lido, 28 August - 7 September 2013), directed by Alberto Barbera and organized by the Biennale chaired by Paolo Baratta.
Following the conferral of the award in the Sala Grande, the 70th Venice Film Festival will present the world premiere of the new film by Ettore Scola, Che strano chiamarsi Federico! Scola racconta Fellini (Out of Competition) a tribute to Federico Fellini on the 20th anniversary of his death.
Ettore Scola has participated in the Venice Film Festival twice in Competition, in 1989 with Che ora è? (What Time Is It?), starring Marcello Mastroianni and Massimo Troisi, joint winners that year of the Coppa Volpi for Best Actor, and in 1995 with Romanzo di un giovane povero, which earned Isabella Ferrari the Coppa Volpi for Best Supporting Actress. In 1998 Scola was president of the international Jury that awarded the Golden Lion to Così ridevanoby Gianni Amelio. Ettore Scola's films were nominated four times for the Oscars (Una giornata particolare (A Special Day) in 1977, I nuovi mostri (Viva Italia!)in 1978, Ballando ballando (Le Bal) in 1983, and La famiglia (The Family) in 1988). Scola has also won seven Silver Ribbons, six David di Donatello and three César awards.
Jaeger-leCoultre is a sponsor of the Venice International Film Festival for the ninth year in a row, and of the Glory to the Filmmaker award for the seventh year in a row. The prize has been awarded in past years to Takeshi Kitano (2007), Abbas Kiarostami (2008), Agnès Varda (2008), Sylvester Stallone (2009), Mani Ratnam (2010), Al Pacino (2011), Spike Lee (2012). Ettore Scola is the first Italian director to be awarded the prize.
Ettore Scola (Trevico, Avellino, 1931) is internationally renowned and one of the foremost figures at the vanguard of Italian cinema for the past 50 years. He is one of the screenwriters and directors who has contributed most significantly to the artistic development of Italian cinema. A contributor in his youth to the Roman satirical magazine "Marc'Aurelio" (with Federico Fellini), he made his debut as a screenwriter in the early 1950's, and moved behind the camera in the mid-1960's. As the author of screenplays, he may be considered as one of the founding fathers of Italian-style comedy, taking part in the creation of some of the most important films of this genre - Il sorpasso (The Easy Life), I mostri, Io la conoscevo bene (I Knew Her Well)-.
This lengthy apprenticeship helped to refine his vision, to develop a style that is both nuanced and insightful, and which met with public appreciation in Italy and abroad (especially in France). Later, as a director, he progressively shifted his interest towards other themes and more complex narrative solutions. This evolution provided the basis for the critical reflection that emerges from the bittersweet folds of C'eravamo tanto amati (We All Loved Each Other So Much, 1974). The film takes stock of a friendship and reflects on the post-war period with Vittorio Gassman, Nino Manfredi and Stefania Sandrelli, a fresco of Italian history seen through emblematic episodes of marginalization.
After Brutti, sporchi e cattivi (Ugly, Dirty and Bad, 1976), which won him the Best Director award at Cannes, he made Una giornata particolare (A Special Day, 1977, nominated for the Oscar as Best Foreign Film), the bitter story of an encounter between two people who are lonely for different reasons, masterfully portrayed by Sophia Loren and Marcello Mastroianni (nominated for an Oscar). In La Terrazza (The Terrace, 1980), which starred Ugo Tognazzi, Vittorio Gassman and Marcello Mastroianni, he offers an unforgiving portrait of the intellectuals and pseudo-intellectuals of high-society Rome. The special experience of Ballando ballando (Le Bal, 1983, nominated for an Oscar as Best Foreign Film and winner of two César awards), a film in music (without dialogues) about 50 years of French history experienced through the microcosm of a dance hall, bears witness to the director's willingness to experiment.
La famiglia (The Family, 1986, candidate for an Oscar as Best Foreign Film) with Vittorio Gassman, Stefania Sandrelli and Fanny Ardant, is another important fresco spanning 80 years of life, in which Scola records the transformations and contradictions of the new Italian society. After the intimate Che ora è? (What Time Is It?,1989), in Il romanzo di un giovane povero (1995, both in Competition at the Venice Film Festival) he looks at a minor news event from a grotesque point of view. His next film La cena (The Dinner, 1998) with Gassman, Ardant and Sandrelli, adopts a unity of time and place to sketch a rapid epic portrait of contemporary Italy, while Concorrenza sleale (Unfair Competition, 2001) with Diego Abatantuono, Sergio Castellitto and Gerard Dépardieu is a bitter indictment against the acquiescence with which the Italian people accepted the spread of racism in the 1930's.
In the semi-documentary film Gente di Roma (People of Rome, 2003), Scola affectionately narrates and describes the population of Rome today. In 2011 Ettore Scola won the David di Donatello for Lifetime Achievement on the occasion of his 80th birthday. In 2012 he was awarded the Gran Premio Torino.
Photo courtesy of Venice Film Festival
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