The Venice Film Festival aims to raise awareness and promote international cinema in all its forms as art, entertainment, and as an industry, in a spirit of freedom and dialogue. One section is devoted to enhance the restoration works on classic films as a contribution towards a better understanding of the history of cinema. The Festival is officially recognised by the FIAPF (International Federation of Film Producers Association).
Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement
The legendary American actress Kim Novak (Vertigo, Picnic, Bell, Book and Candle) has been awarded the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement at the 82nd Venice International Film Festival of La Biennale di Venezia
The decision was made by the Board of Directors of La Biennale, upon recommendation of the Artistic Director of the Festival, Alberto Barbera.
Kim Novak in accepting the offer, declared: “I am deeply, deeply touched to receive the prestigious Golden Lion Award from such an enormously respected film festival. To be recognized for my body of work at this time in my life is a dream come true. I will treasure every moment I spend in Venice. It will fill my heart with joy”.
Alberto Barbera, Venice Festival’s Artistic Director stated
“Inadvertently becoming a screen legend, Kim Novak was one of the most beloved icons of an entire era of Hollywood films, from her auspicious debut during the mid-1950s until her premature and voluntary exile from the gilded cage of Los Angeles a short while later. She never refrained from criticizing the studio system, choosing her roles, who she let into her private life and even her name. Forced to renounce her given name, Marilyn Pauline, because it was associated with Monroe, she fought to conserve her last name, agreeing, in exchange, to dye her hair that shade of platinum blonde which set her apart. Independent and nonconformist, she created her own production company and went on strike to renegotiate a salary that was much lower than that of her male co-stars. Thanks to her exuberant beauty; her ability to bring to life characters who were naïve and discreet, as well as sensuous and tormented; and her seductive and sometimes sorrowful gaze, she was appreciated by some of the major American directors of the period, from Billy Wilder (Kiss me, Stupid), to Otto Preminger (The Man With the Golden Arm), Robert Aldrich (The Legend of Lylah Clare), George Sidney (The Eddy Duchin Story, Jeanne Eagels, Pal Joey), and Richard Quine, with whom she made unforgettable romantic comedies (Pushover, Bell Book and Candle, Strangers When We Meet, The Notorious Landlady). But her image will remain forever linked to the dual characters she played in Hitchcock’s Vertigo, which became the role of her life. This Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement celebrates a star who was emancipated, a rebel at the heart of Hollywood who illuminated the dreams of movie
