The US actress will receive the award at the 81st edition of the festival, which takes place from 28 August – 7 September.
ADVERTISEMENTThree-time Oscar-nominated actress Sigourney Weaver will receive the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement at the 81st Venice International Film Festival.
Weaver is best known for the Alien and Avatar franchises and has also received critical acclaim for roles in Gorillas In The Mist, Working Girl and The Ice Storm – winning a supporting actress BAFTA for the latter.
In accepting the honour, she said: “To be gifted this award is a privilege I share with all the filmmakers and collaborators I have worked with throughout the years. I proudly accept this award in celebration of all who have helped bring these films to life.”
Venice’s director Alberto Barbera said: “An actress of the caliber of Sigourney Weaver has few rivals. Strengthened by her significant theatrical training, she won over the great film-going public with ‘Alien,’ directed by Ridley Scott, soon becoming an emblematic figure of the 1980s.”
He continued: “During the course of that decade, she forged the image of a heroine unprecedented in the action film genre, able to victoriously rival the male models who, up to that point, had dominated epic and adventure movies. Not satisfied with having blazed the trail for powerful female actors, the actress ceaselessly continued her search for a personal identity.”
“Endowed with a remarkable temperament, able to move with delicacy yet without fragility, she has created the image of a woman who is self-assured and determined, dynamic and resolute; at the same time, with endlessly different shadings, she allows her intensely magnetic, feminine sensitivity to filter through. The Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement is just recognition for a star who has built bridges between the most sophisticated art-house cinema and movies that engage with the public in a frank and original way, all the while remaining true to herself.”
Last year’s award was given to director Liliana Cavani and the actor Tony Leung Chiu-wai.
The full line-up of the 81st edition of the Venice Film Festival will be announced on 23 July. As previously announced, Australian director Peter Weir is also receiving an honorary Golden Lion, and French actress Isabelle Huppert will be heading up this year’s Competition jury.
The 81st edition of the Venice Film Festival will take place from 28 August to 7 September 2024.
