The Locarno Film Festival will celebrate American director Darren Aronofsky with the titular cheetah, Pardo Donori, presented by Manor, at its 79th edition this summer, organizers said Tuesday.
The festival, which praised Arnofsky as a “visionary,” said he would receive the honor on Friday, August 14, in the Swiss city’s Piazza Grande. He will also present two of his films at the festival: The fountain (2006) and the mom! (2017).
“With era-defining films like π (1998), Requiem for a Dream (2000), winner of the Venice Film Festival Prize Gladiator (2008), Black swan (2010), Noah (2014), and Pisces “(2022), for which Brendan Fraser deservedly received the Best Actor award at the Academy Awards, Darren Aronofsky has carved out a space in contemporary cinema that defies neat categorization,” said Locarno. “Provocative, spiritual, and formally daring, his films for more than a quarter-century have explored the outer limits of faith, desire, and obsession.”
Locarno concluded that Aronofsky would receive this honor in recognition of his “uniqueness as an artistic force.”
Giona A said. Nazzaro, Artistic Director of Locarno: “Darren Aronofsky, an auteur who has made the sheer force of creativity, invention and audacity his trademark, has never failed to challenge convention and expectation, nor has he simply tried to pander to the public or the industry. As a filmmaker, he has succeeded in creating a body of work so unmistakable that the adjective ‘Aronofsky’ is now used to describe a profound and unconventional personality.” It is a style that nevertheless moves freely between different genres and approaches – in its specific case based on those themes and concerns that he has tirelessly explored: faith, motherhood, struggles with authoritarian patriarchal figures, and the challenges inherent in creating communities.
He added: “Aronofsky embodies the joy of cinema as a constant risk and challenge. Celebrating his work at Locarno, and welcoming him to the grand arena, is a tribute to the beauty, challenges and necessity of fundamental creativity.”
The Pardo d’Onore has been awarded since 2017 with the support of Locarno Festival partner Mano. Past recipients include Bernardo Bertolucci, Ken Loach, Jean-Luc Godard, Abbas Kiarostami, Terry Gilliam, Alexander Sokurov, William Friedkin, Jia Zhang Ke, Leos Carax, Werner Herzog, Agnès Varda, Marco Bellocchio, Alejandro Jodorowsky, Todd Haynes, John Waters, John Landis, Kelly Reichardt, Harmony Korine, and Jane Campion, and, last year, Alexander Payne.
The 79th Locarno Film Festival will be held from August 5 to 15.
