La Biennale di Venezia and Jaeger-LeCoultre announce that US director Abel Ferrara (author of, among others, the films Pasolini, The Bad Lieutenant e King of New York) the Jaeger-LeCoultre Glory to the Filmmaker award at the 77th Venice International Film Festival (2 - 12 September 2020), dedicated to a personality who has made a particularly original mark on contemporary cinema. The presentation of the award to Abel Ferrara will take place on Saturday 5 September in the Sala Grande (Palazzo del Cinema) at 2pm, before the Out of Competition screening of his new film, the documentary Sportin' Life (Italy, 65'), starring the director himself, Willem Dafoe, Cristina Chiriac, Anna Ferrara, Paul Hipp and Joe Delia. On the subject of this award, Festival Director Alberto Barbera said: "Among the many merits of Abel Ferrara, appreciated by all despite his reputation as one of the most controversial directors in contemporary cinema, is his undisputed coherence and faithfulness to a personal path, inspired by the principles of independent cinema even when the director had the opportunity to deal with more traditional and established productions. From his first low-budget films, directly influenced by the New York scene populated by immigrants, artists, musicians, cops and drug addicts, through his universally recognised masterpieces - The King of New York (1990), Bad Lieutenant (1992), e Body Snatchers (1994) - up to his latest works, which are progressively more introspective and autobiographical, Ferrara has created a personal and exclusive universe. From the original conflicts between guilt and innocence, redemption and religion, sin and betrayal that prevail at length in his cinema, along with the depiction of the urban, nocturnal and degraded violence of the metropolis, Ferrara has arrived at original reflections on the end of the world and the impossibility of attributing meaning to the relationships between individuals and the community, which confirm him as one of the most interesting unreconciled directors of the moment".
