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Director director Amir Naderi receives the Jaeger-LeCoultre
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La Biennale di Venezia and Jaeger-LeCoultre are pleased to
announce that the great Iranian director Amir Naderi (Vegas, Manhattan by
Numbers, Davandeh-The Runner) received the Jaeger-LeCoultre Glory to the
Filmmaker award of the 73rd Venice International Film Festival, dedicated to a
personality who has made an original contribution to innovation in contemporary
cinema.
Amin Naderi was awarded the prize in a ceremony held September
5 in the Sala Grande (Palazzo del Cinema), before the Out of Competition
screening of his new film Monte, in its world premiere showing in Venice. The
film (shot on location in Italy in the mountains of the Alto Adige and Friuli
regions) is set in the year 1350 and tells the dramatic 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.
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Amir Naderi and Laurent Vinay |
The Director of the Venice Film Festival, Alberto Barbera,
made the following statement about the award: “Amir Naderi gave fundamental
impetus to the birth of the New Iranian Cinema during the 1970s and ‘80s with a
number of masterpieces destined to leave their mark on the history of cinema,
such as Davandeh (The Runner, 1985) and Ab, bâd, khâk (Water, Wind, Dust,
1988). But even after moving to New York in 1988, Naderi remained stubbornly
true to himself and to a type of cinema dedicated to research and
experimentation, which refuses to bow to trends and easy shortcuts. Every film
he has made clearly displays the nucleus of an identical obsession, which
transcends the principle of reality in order to force individuals beyond their
own limits. The last half hour of Monte is a sort of synthesis of his entire
opus, a larger-than-life metaphor of a struggle for survival prevailing over
the dividing lines, intimidations and insults, which can sometimes make human
existence miserable. The breathtaking epilogue transforms the ideas, emotions
and visions at the basis of all his films into powerfully expressive images.
The Jaeger-LeCoultre Award is a well-deserved recognition, a tribute to the
originality and greatness of a filmmaker who stands out from the crowd, the
talent of a passionate director, and the generosity of a man who seems to know
no limits.”
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The Reverso given to commemorate
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Since the 1970s, Amir Naderi (Abadan, 1945) has been among
the most influential figures of New Iranian Cinema. He entered the
international spotlight with cinema classics such as Tangsir (1974), Entezar
(1974), awarded the Jury Prize at the Cannes children’s film festival, The
Runner (1985) and Ab, Bad, Khak (1989), which both won the Golden Montgolfiere
at Three Continents Festival in Nantes. The first prominent Iranian director to
move abroad in the mid ’80s, Naderi’s American films have uniquely captured the
vanishing texture of New York. Sound Barrier (2005) won the Roberto Rossellini
Critics’ Prize at the Rome Film Festival. Vegas: Based on a True Story,
premiered In Competition at Venice in 2008. Cut was shot in Japan and premiered
as the Opening Film of the Orizzonti section at Venice in 2011, later winning
the 21st Japan Professional Film Awards for Best Director and Best
Actor. Naderi’s work has been the subject of retrospectives at museums and film
festivals around the world. He has served on international juries such as Jury
President for the Competition section of Tokyo FILMeX in 2011 and the Orizzonti
section of Venice in 2012.
Jaeger-LeCoultre is a sponsor of the Venice International
Film Festival for the twelfth year in a row, and of the Glory to the Filmmaker
prize for the tenth. 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 (2013),
James Franco (2014), and Brian De Palma (2015).
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