Gucci, in collaboration with the 68th Venice International Film Festival, is pleased to announce the nominees for the new annual award to recognize an outstanding artistic achievement by a woman in filmmaking: the Gucci Award for Women in Cinema. The inaugural award will be presented at the 68th Venice International Film Festival.
Nominees have been selected from a range of disciplines including director, actor, producer, cinematographer, director of photography, set designer, screenwriter, editor, and costume designer by an Advisory Committee led by Venice International Film Festival Director Marco Mueller.
The 2011 Gucci Award for Women in Cinema nominees are screenwriter Federica Pontremoli; producer Nansun Shi; director and producer Athina Tsangari; director of photography Caroline Champetier and actress Jessica Chastain. Touted as “the next big thing” and “Hollywood’s biggest secret”, Jessica has nine films about to be released including The Tree of Life, and is a frontrunner for the award in our opinion.
A jury led by Gucci Creative Director Frida Giannini will select the final recipient from this group of distinguished women. She is joined on the jury by actors Robin Wright, Valeria Golino, James Franco and film journalist, curator and the Venice Film Festival’s US Programmer Giulia D’Agnolo Vallan. The winner will be announced during a ceremony and private dinner hosted by Giannini on Friday, September 2nd.
This new accolade follows on from the Gucci Group Award, which for four years - beginning in 2006- honoured artists who made a remarkable contribution to film. Now Gucci has joined forces with one of the world’s most prestigious and glamorous film festivals to spotlight and acclaim the unique contributions women make to the film industry in a wide range of capacities. In honor of this occasion, Gucci will make a grant of US$25,000 to the Maurice Kanbar Institute of Film and Television at NYU Tisch School of the Arts in the name of the recipient of the 2011 Gucci Award for Women in Cinema.
Gucci’s relationship with cinema dates back to the 1940’s, and over the past six years the company has centered its significant commitment toward preserving the art of cinema through its work with Martin Scorsese’s The Film Foundation for the restoration of groundbreaking and influential films. Titles restored to date include Federico Fellini’s La Dolce Vita, Luchino Visconti’s Il Gattopardo and Senso, John Cassavetes’s A Woman Under the Influence, Michelangelo Antonioni’s Le Amiche, and Barbara Loden’s Wanda, the restored version of which had its world premiere at the 67th Venice Film Festival in 2010. The most recent project, Nicholas Ray’s We Can’t Go Home Again, will have its world restoration premiere at Venice on September 4th and will be introduced by James Franco and Susan Ray. Following the premiere, a round table panel discussion will be organized with James Franco, Susan Ray, Douglas Gordon, Wim Wenders and Victor Erice.
On September 3rd, with the support of Gucci, Franco will also present three art installations on the Certosa Island, as a collateral event of the 54th International Art Exhibition, organized by la Biennale di Venezia. The three installations will be: Rebel, an abstract examination of 20th century cinema and iconography, Nicholas Ray's experimental film We Can't Go Home Again, and Sal, the latest film directed by James Franco, which will both have their world premiere at the 68th Venice International Film Festival on the Lido.
