La Biennale di Venezia and Campari are pleased to announce that cinematographer Luca Bigazzi (The Great Beauty, The Way We Laughed, Bread and Tulips) is the recipient of the Campari Passion for Film Award of the 76th Venice International Film Festival. The award, instituted last year at the 75th Venice Film Festival, seeks to highlight the remarkable contribution given by the director's closest collaborators to the fulfillment of the artistic project that each film represents. It is not often that cinematographers, editors, composers, set or costume designers are adequately recognized for their work, which is often key to the quality of the final result. Passion for Film attributes this award to these professional figures (last year the prize was awarded to American film editor Bob Murawski), who are more than just craftsmen: they are artists and co-authors of the films to which they offer the gift of their unparallelled talent.
The ceremony for the award to Luca Bigazzi will take place on Sunday September 1st at 4:30 pm in the Sala Grande (Palazzo del Cinema) before the world premiere screening Out of Competition of his latest work, the series The New Pope by Paolo Sorrentino (episodes 2 and 7) with Jude Law, John Malkovich, Silvio Orlando, Cécile de France, Javier Cámara, and Ludivine Sagnier, produced by Sky with Hbo, Canal+, developed by Wildside and distributed internationally by Fremantle.
The 76th Venice Film Festival will be held on the Lido from August 28th to September 7th 2019, directed by Alberto Barbera and organized by La Biennale chaired by Paolo Baratta.
Alberto Barbera notes, “Italian cinema, from the second half of the 1980s to today, is closely tied to the extraordinary work of Luca Bigazzi. With his personal, unorthodox approach, Bigazzi has revolutionized the way the cinematographer’s work is conducted: limited time dedicated to positioning the lights, a creative and ingenious way of using natural light sources, always glued to the view-finder to pinpoint the best possible angles and the most appropriate movements of the camera. He has absolutely no reverence for 35mm film; on the contrary, he joyfully experiments with the new possibilities offered by technological progress in shooting and manipulating images. His extreme versatility lets him work with all different kinds of directors, whose approach to cinema seems like the opposite of his own (for instance, his surprising partnership with Sorrentino). This dovetails with his talent for speed, precision, a disregard for consolidated rules, and an inclination to adapt himself to all kinds of budgets, all of which have made him the best Italian cinematographer in the past thirty years.”
“We are very proud to confirm our collaboration with the International Film Festival and to have created the “Passion for Film” Award together with its Artistic Direction - states Lorenzo Sironi, Senior Marketing Director for Campari Group - With a common thread that covers everything stemming from passion, a theme that has always been inextricably linked to Campari, the Award aims to promote those who, alongside the director, contribute each day to creating outstanding film. In particular, we have recognised a crucial artistic figure this year in the shape of the photography director, a true maestro of light who uses images to determine the aesthetic language of a film”.