The European Film Academy has announced that it will present Alice Rohrwacher with the European Achievement in World Cinema Award for her “unusual and inspiring” body of work.
Rohrwacher will receive the award at the 38th European Film Awards in January 2026.
The EFA said in a statement: “Born in Tuscany, Alice Rohrwacher graduated from the Faculty of Literature and Philosophy in Turin and from the documentary school in Lisbon, Portugal.
“With a careful eye for the realities of a teenager’s life and a big heart for the countryside, she creates a unique universe for each of her films.
“Following the characters along their path with great sensitivity, she leaves space for all the quirky, unexpected and poetic little details. Because of all of that, Alice Rohrwacher is one of contemporary cinema’s most distinctive voices worldwide.”
Rohrwacher’s feature debut Corpo Celeste observes young Marta, who, having moved back to the south of Italy with her family, is experiencing a difficult time trying to find her place with all the personal, religious and social changes in her life.
The film premiered in Cannes and was nominated for the Italian David di Donatello Awards.
Also portraying the often-neglected life of teenagers in the countryside with The Wonders, she looks at Gelsomina and her younger sisters in a German-Italian beekeeping family, with the film premiering in Cannes and receiving the Grand Prize of the Jury.
Happy as Lazzaro also ran in competition in Cannes and won Best Screenplay, with the film later nominated for the Italian David di Donatello Awards and for the European Film Awards, where it won the European University Film Award.
Continuing this curious interest in the world of teenagers, Futura offers a portrait of Italy as seen through their eyes.
La Chimera follows a group of grave-robbers who make a living by looting Etruscan tombs and selling the artefacts, starring British actor Josh O’Connor, who was nominated for the European Film Awards, the director’s sister Alba Rohrwacher and Isabella Rossellini.
It ran in competition in Cannes and was nominated for the Italian David di Donatello Awards, the Spanish Goya and the Danish Robert, and won Emita Frigato European Production Designer at the European Film Awards.
Rohrwacher’s latest short film, Le Pupille, was nominated for Best Live Action Short Film at the Oscars.
The EFA added: “In honouring this outstanding artist, the award also pays tribute to her longstanding collaboration with producer Carlo Cresto-Dina and his production company tempesta, which produced all of Alice Rohrwacher’s feature films.”
