For the first time in its 66 year history, the Venice Film Festival will honour an entire movie studio, when it gives the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement to John Lasseter and the other directors at Pixar Animation Studios.
In a statement released on Monday, the festival's organizers plan to bestow the Lifetime Achievement Award on Lasseter and the other Disney/Pixar directors at a special ceremony in the Sala Grande of the Palazzo del Cinema at Venice Lido. Fellow Pixar directors Brad Bird (Ratatouille), Pete Docter (Up), Andrew Stanton (WALL-E) and Lee Unkrich (Toy Story 3) will also be in attendance.
Venice Film Festival Honours Pixar, a "Visionary Studio"
"John Lasseter is the protagonist of 'Western' contemporary animation cinema," declared festival director Marco Müller in the statement, who also admitted that he was a great admirer of animated film. "Always on the lookout for that point at which the avant-garde (whether artistic, technological or formal) meets the blockbuster, and the director of magnificent films -- such as Toy Story (1995), A Bug's Life (1998), Toy Story 2 (1999) and Cars (2006), Lasseter has not only contributed in a fundamental manner to bringing animation cinema to new heights as one of the great expressive forces of the new millennium, but has also become one of the symbols of the most precious, vital and inventive tradition of the great Hollywood cinema."
"We are particularly pleased to award this Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement to one of the great innovators and experimenters of Hollywood," added Venice Biennale president Paolo Baratta. "We believe that the presence of John Lasseter in Venice, with his fellow Disney-Pixar directors, will represent an extraordinary opportunity for them to meet young Italian and European animation filmmakers as part of a workshop organized with the Biennale."
The Venice Film Festival runs from September 2nd to the 12th.
About John Lasseter
After John Lasseter was fired from Disney Animation for "being too creative" in 1983, he co-founded Pixar Animation Studios with Ed Catmull and Apple Computers founder Steve Jobs. As a movie director, he won two Oscars: the first for the 1988 animated short "Tin Toy," and a special Oscar for the first all CGI animated film, 1995's Toy Story.
In addition to directing 1999's Toy Story 2 and 2006's Cars, Lasseter was the executive producer for several of Pixar's other hits: Monsters, Inc. (2001), Finding Nemo (2003), The Incredibles (2004), Ratatouille (2007) and Wall-E (2008). After Disney bought Pixar 2006 (paying $7.4 billion for the studio), Lasseter became the chief creative officer at Walt Disney Animation Studios and principal creative advisor for Walt Disney Imagineering, in addition to his duties at Pixar.
Fun Fact: Will Lasseter wear one of his trademark Hawaiian shirts to the award ceremony?
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