Life Is Beautiful Oscar winner
Roberto Benigni will receive this year's career Golden Lion at
the Venice Film Festival, organisers said Thursday.
The honour to the director, actor, and screenwriter will be
awarded during the 78th Venice International Film Festival (1-11
September 2021).
The decision was made by the board of La Biennale di Venezia,
which embraced the proposal of the Festival's Director, Alberto
Barbera.
Roberto Benigni, in accepting, stated, "My heart is full of joy
and gratitude. It is an immense honor to receive such an
important recognition of my work from the Venice International
Film Festival."
Regarding this award, Director Alberto Barbera declared, "Right
from his debut, marked by his innovative and irreverent approach
to rules and traditions, Roberto Benigni stands out in the
panorama of the Italian performing arts as an unprecedented and
unequaled figure of reference. Juggling his appearances on
theatrical stages, movie sets, and television studios, each time
with surprising results, he shines in all of them thanks to his
exuberance and impetuosity, his generous way with the public,
and the passionate joyfulness that is perhaps the most original
hallmark of his opus. With admirable eclecticism, and always
true to form, he is one of the most extraordinary comedy actors
in an admittedly rich gallery of Italian performers; a memorable
director who makes enormously popular movies; and, his most
recent transformation, one of the most esteemed performers and
popularizers of Dante's 'Divine Comedy'. Few artists have
equaled his ability to combine explosive comic timing, which is
often accompanied by irreverent satire, with his admirable
talent as an actor - at the service of great directors such as
Federico Fellini, Matteo Garrone, and Jim Jarmusch - and as an
engaging and sophisticated literary exegete."
Roberto Benigni was born in Misericordia (Castiglion Fiorentino,
Arezzo) on October 27, 1952. He began his career in the early
1970s and soon became one of Italy's most beloved and popular
actors, directors, and screenwriters, well-known and appreciated
throughout the world.
His film La vita è bella (Life is Beautiful, 1997), which he
wrote and directed, received the 1998 Grand Prize of the Jury at
the Cannes Film Festival and in 1999, of the seven Oscar
nominations the movie received, it won Oscars for Best Foreign
Language Film and Best Actor (as well as Best Music, awarded to
Nicola Piovani). With the same film in 1999 he won the Screen
Actor Guild and Bafta award as Best Actor. La vita è bella is
Italian cinema's most popular movie: 9.7 million spectators. And
it goes down in the history of Italian cinema as the Italian
movie that has totaled the highest number of spectators
worldwide.
Besides the four David di Donatello Awards and the four Silver
Ribbons he won with La vita è bella, Benigni also received David
di Donatello Awards for Il piccolo diavolo (The Little Devil,
1988) and Johnny Stecchino (1991); Silver Ribbons for Down by
Law (1986), Johnny Stecchino (1991), and La tigre e la neve (The
Tiger and the Snow, 2005); and, recently, a David di Donatello
Award as Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of Geppetto in
Pinocchio (2019) by Matteo Garrone. In 2008 he received in Paris
the César d'Honneur. In 2016, he received an Italian Golden
Globe for Lifetime Achievement and the following year, a Special
David at the David di Donatello Awards. In 2020 he was awarded
the Prix Lumière for Lifetime Achievement.
He has also made his name in American cinema, acting with
directors such as Jim Jarmusch (Down by Law, 1986; Night on
Earth, 1992; Coffee and Cigarettes, 2003), Blake Edwards (Son of
the Pink Panther, 1993), and Woody Allen (To Rome with Love,
2012).
His popularity in the piazzas of his native Tuscany convinced
the 20-year-old Benigni to move to Rome. His first successes
were in avant-garde theatre and, later, on TV shows (L'altra
domenica, 1976, by Renzo Arbore, as a hilarious movie critic).
He then brought one of his own shows onto the silver screen,
Berlinguer ti voglio bene (Berlinguer I Love You, 1977),
directed by Giuseppe Bertolucci. Next, he put himself in the
spotlight as the protagonist of Chiedo asilo (Seeking Asylum,
1979) by Marco Ferreri and of Il minestrone (1981) by Sergio
Citti and he participated in La luna (Luna, 1979) by Bernardo
Bertolucci and Il pap'occhio (1980) by Renzo Arbore. He played
the lead in Down by Law (1986) by Jim Jarmusch and he was the
surreal and poetic Ivo in the testament film by Federico
Fellini, La voce della luna (The Voice of the Moon, 1990),
co-starring Paolo Villaggio.
Benigni debuted as a director with Tu mi turbi (You Upset Me,
1983) and together with Massimo Troisi he directed the popular
Non ci resta che piangere (Nothing Left to Do But Cry, 1984),
the first of a series of box office successes such as Il piccolo
diavolo (1988), starring Walter Matthau and the first movie he
co-wrote with Vincenzo Cerami. Since 1987, he has worked with
Nicoletta Braschi, the female lead in all of his movies and the
co-founder in 1991 of the company "Melampo Cinematografica"
which, from then on, has produced all their films: Johnny
Stecchino (1991), Il mostro (The Monster, 1994), La vita è bella
(1997), followed by Pinocchio (2002), which received two David
di Donatello Awards and a Silver Ribbon, and La tigre e la neve
(2005), which received two Silver Ribbons.
Benigni has proven to be an extraordinarily talented popularizer
of high culture, performing and analyzing The Divine Comedy by
Dante Alighieri; the Italian national anthem, Il Canto degli
italiani; the Fundamental Principles of the Constitution of the
Italian Republic, and the Ten Commandments of the Bible, all to
great public and critical acclaim. In 2005, the President of the
Italian Republic Carlo Azeglio Ciampi named him a Knight Grand
Cross of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic. He has
received ten honorary degrees and many other awards and
recognitions throughout the world.
On the occasion of Dantedì 2021, Benigni recited the Canto
Paradiso 25, broadcast live from the Great Hall of the
Cuirassiers at the Quirinal Palace and in the presence of the
President of the Republic, Sergio Mattarella and the Minister of
Culture, Dario Franceschini.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED © Copyright ANSA
