The Locarno Film Festival will celebrate American filmmaker Darren Aronofsky with the Pardo d’Onore, presented by Manor, at its 79th edition.
Aronofsky will receive the festival’s honorary leopard on Friday 14 August in Piazza Grande, as well as present, in the programme, two of his most “outstanding and singular” works from his career: The Fountain (2006) and Mother! (2017).
“With era-defining films like π (1998), Requiem for a Dream (2000), the Venice film festival award-winner The Wrestler (2008), Black Swan (2010), Noah (2014), and The Whale (2022), for which Brendan Fraser was deservedly awarded Best Actor at the Academy Awards, Darren Aronofsky has carved out a space in contemporary cinema that defies tidy categorisation,” Locarno said.
“By turns provocative, spiritual, and formally daring, his films have for more than a quarter century probed the outer limits of faith, desire, and obsession.
“In recognition of his singularity as an artistic force, the Locarno Film Festival is honoured to award its Pardo d’Onore to Darren Aronofsky.”
Giona A. Nazzaro, artistic director, added: “An auteur who has made the sheer force of creativity, invention, and audacity his trademark, Darren Aronofsky has never failed to challenge conventions and expectations, nor attempted simply to please either the public or the industry.
“As a filmmaker, he has succeeded in creating an unmistakable body of work, such that the adjective ‘Aronofskian’ is now used to characterise a deeply personal and unconventional style that nonetheless moves freely between different genres and approaches – in his specific case anchored in those themes and obsessions that he has tirelessly explored: faith, motherhood, the conflicts with authoritarian father figures, and the challenges inherent in the creation of societies.
“Aronofsky embodies the pleasure of cinema as risk and constant challenge. Celebrating his work in Locarno, welcoming him to the Piazza Grande, is a tribute to creativity’s essential beauty, challenges, and necessity.”
Over the years, the festival’s honorary leopard has been awarded to some of the most outstanding personalities in cinema.
Previous recipients include Manoel de Oliveira, Bernardo Bertolucci, Ken Loach, Jean-Luc Godard, Abbas Kiarostami, Terry Gilliam, Alexander Sokurov, William Friedkin, Alain Tanner, Jia Zhang-ke, Leos Carax, Werner Herzog, Agnès Varda, Michael Cimino, Marco Bellocchio, Alejandro Jodorowsky, Jean-Marie Straub, Todd Haynes, Bruno Dumont, John Waters, John Landis, Kelly Reichardt, Harmony Korine, Jane Campion, and Alexander Payne.
The 79th Locarno Film Festival will take place from 5 to 15 August.
