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©Patrick Swirc / All rights reserved to the Locarno Film Festival
Jane Campion’s biography is a succession of remarkable firsts. The first woman to win the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival – for The Piano (1993); the first woman to be nominated twice for Best Director at the Academy Awards – winning once for The Power of the Dog (2021); the first filmmaker from New Zealand to compete at the Venice Film Festival and then the first woman to win the festival’s Silver Lion for Best Director. Yet her distinctiveness and refusal to be artistically pigeonholed has not waned even as she has reached these heights of acclaim and recognition. With each subsequent work, Campion has proved a tireless innovator, whether in adapting Henry James (The Portrait of a Lady, 1996), directing a Meg Ryan-starring thriller based on a bestseller (In the Cut, 2003), or reimagining and revitalizing the western (The Power of the Dog). Over the course of nine feature films, half a dozen shorts, and two seasons of the television miniseries Top of the Lake (2013-17), Campion has established herself as one of the key architects of the contemporary cinematic imagination.
During its 77th edition (7-17 August) the Locarno Film Festival is honored to pay tribute to Jane Campion with the award of the Pardo d’Onore Manor and the screening of two characteristic works from her oeuvre, An Angel at My Table (1990) and The Piano (1993), the latter of which will be screened on the Piazza Grande on the night she receives her Pardo d’Onore.
Giona A. Nazzaro, Artistic Director of the Locarno Film Festival: “With her directorial debut, Sweetie (1989), Jane Campion asserted herself from the start as a distinctive and unmistakable voice. More than thirty years later, the values and extraordinary qualities of her filmmaking remain undiminished. Campion has sustained genuine complexity in her artistic practice, free to weave a dialogue with audiences and with the film industry in which she works without ever compromising on her vision and her artistic ambitions. Her work, peopled with tortured, fascinating characters and marked by an astonishing skill in grappling with the more disturbing side of the human condition, represents one of the undisputed pinnacles of contemporary filmmaking. Jane Campion’s artistic freedom and willingness to take risks to find new and deeper insights into the richness and complexities of human experience make her an unparalleled point of reference for anybody who thinks of film as an instrument of expression and emancipation. To offer the Pardo d’Onore to Jane Campion means – today – to welcome cinema in all its infinite possibilities and to look to the future without fear.”
Jane Campion will be in Piazza Grande to receive the award on the evening of Friday 16 August. Two key films from her career will be shown during Locarno77:
An Angel at My Table – Australia, New Zealand, United Kingdom, United States – 1990
The Piano – Australia, New Zealand, France – 1993
On Saturday, August 17 the public will have a chance to meet with the director during a panel conversation to be held at the Forum @ Spazio Cinema.
The Locarno Film Festival’s Pardo d’Onore Manor has been awarded to filmmakers such as Manoel de Oliveira, Bernardo Bertolucci, Ken Loach, Jean-Luc Godard, Werner Herzog, Agnès Varda, Michael Cimino, Marco Bellocchio, John Waters, Kelly Reichardt and, in 2023, Harmony Korine. Since 2017 the Pardo d’Onore has been supported by Manor, event partner of the Locarno Film Festival.
Jane Campion was the first female director to receive the Palme d’Or at Cannes Film Festival (1993) for The Piano and she won Academy Award for Best Screenplay. Jane’s films include Sweetie (1989), An Angel at My Table (1990), The Portrait of a Lady (1996), Holy Smoke (1999), In the Cut (2003), Bright Star (2009) and two seasons of the mystery thriller Top of the Lake (2013 & 2017). The series received 8 Emmy nominations, 2 Golden Globe nominations and won Best Drama at the 2013 Screen Producers Association Awards. The Power of the Dog premiered at Venice Film Festival in 2021 and Jane was awarded the Silver Lion for Best Director. The film won over 30 Best Film and over 30 Best Director Awards, including Best Motion Picture and Best Director at Golden Globe Awards, Best Film and Best Director at BAFTA Awards and Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Theatrical Feature Film by DGA.
The 77th Locarno Film Festival will take place from 7 to 17 August 2024
