Sigourney Weaver has been awarded the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement at the upcoming Venice International Film Festival.
Venice chief Alberto Barbera called the thrice Academy Award-nominated Alien star “an actress with 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 added. “As an authentic collaborator, rather than simply a malleable instrument in the hands of a director, she has contributed to the success of movies by James Cameron, Paul Schrader, Peter Weir, Michael Apted, Roman Polanski, Ivan Reitman, Mike Nichols, Ang Lee, and many others, each time imposing the mark of a complex personality — at times contradictory but always authentic — onto her own charismatic presence. 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.”
Weaver said: “I am truly honored to receive the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement from the Biennale di Venezia. 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.”
Weaver rose to fame as Ellen Ripley in Ridley Scott’s Alien, reprising her role several years later for James Cameron’s Aliens, for which she received her first Academy Award nod. She has since achieved success across the decades, starring in the likes of Gorillas in the Mist, Working Girl and The Ice Storm. More recently, she reunited with Cameron in Avatar and its Way of Water sequel.
The award is described as “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 Venice lineup will be unveiled July 23. The 81st edition of the fest will take place from August 28 to September 7 this year.
