The Festival opens with Sigourney Weaver’s Leone D’Oro

Sigourney Weaver will receive the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement on August 28th, during the opening ceremony of the 81st Venice Film Festival. The New York actress had already earned a place in the history of the seventh art by facing the terrifying xenomorph in Alien (1979) and three sequels of Ridley Scott’s cult film. Then, in the 1980s, she participated in the two initial chapters of the hugely popular Ghostbusters saga. But, not content with becoming one of the decade’s stars, Weaver, as Barbera himself recalls, ‘continued in her incessant search for her own identity, which was constantly called into question‘, ranging between genres and ‘escaping labels‘. Titles include Michael Apted’s Gorilla in the Mist and Mike Nichols’ Working Girl, thanks to which she was the first to win two Golden Globes in the same year. She was directed, among others, by Peter Weir (this year’s other Lion for Lifetime Achievement) in The Year Living Dangerously, by Roman Polanski in Death and the Maiden, by Ang Lee in Ice Storm (winning the BAFTA), by Paul Schrader in The Master Gardener (Out of Competition at Venice 79). And, of course, by James Cameron, in Aliens (the first film that brought her to the Lido) and in the Avatar saga. ‘Succeeding each time,’ Barbera stresses, “in imprinting her charismatic presence with the indelible mark of a complex, sometimes contradictory, always authentic figure“. And by building ‘bridges between the most sophisticated auteur cinema and films that dialogue with the public‘. ‘I proudly accept this award,’ said Weaver, “which also celebrates all those who helped bring these films to life“. The award ceremony will take place in the Sala Grande of the Palazzo del Cinema immediately after the Festival’s opening ceremony (7 pm) and before the screening of Beetlejuice Beetlejuice.