New Zealand filmmaking icon Peter Jackson will be awarded an honorary Palme d’Or at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. The three-time Oscar-winning director — best known for the blockbuster “Lord of the Rings” trilogy — is set to receive the honour during the opening ceremony of the 79th edition of the festival on May 12.
Jackson joins a prestigious list of previous Cannes honorary Palme recipients, including Agnès Varda, Marco Bellocchio, Jodie Foster, Meryl Streep, Robert De Niro and Tom Cruise.
In awarding the honorary Palme d’Or, the festival said the tribute was to celebrate the director for a body of work which blends Hollywood blockbusters and auteur filmmaking with “extraordinary artistic vision and technological audacity.”
“To be honoured with an honorary Palme d’Or at Cannes is one of the greatest privileges of my career,” Jackson said. “Cannes has been a meaningful part of my filmmaking journey. In 1988, I attended the Festival Marketplace with my first movie, “Bad Taste,” then in 2001 we screened a preview sequence from “The Fellowship of the Ring,” both of which were important milestones in my career. This festival has always celebrated bold, visionary cinema, and I’m incredibly grateful to the Festival de Cannes for being recognised among the filmmakers and the artists whose work continues to inspire me.”
Jackson has a long history with Cannes. As he noted, in May 2001, he unveiled 26 minutes of footage from “The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring” on the Croisette, months before the film’s global release. The presentation, which initially drew skepticism, ultimately helped ignite what would become one of the most successful fantasy franchises in cinema history.
Cannes president Iris Knobloch said the festival was proud to celebrate a filmmaker of “boundless creativity who has brought prestige to the heroic fantasy genre.”
Added Cannes chief Thierry Frémaux: “There is clearly a before and an after Peter Jackson. Larger-than-life cinema is his trademark, and his all-encompassing art of entertainment is particularly ambitious.”
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Fremaux, who had curated the Cannes lineup for the last 25 years, praised Jackson for having “permanently transformed Hollywood cinema and its conception of the spectacle,” adding, “But Peter Jackson is not only a great technician; he is above all a tremendous storyteller. And an unpredictable artist: what will his next universe be?”
Aside from the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy, Jackson directed “King Kong” and the “Hobbit” trilogy, while his early career was noted for beloved low-budget splatter horrors including “Bad Taste,” “Braindead and “Meet the Feebles.” More recently, the filmmaker turned to documentaries, including “They Shall Not Grow Old,” which restored and colorized archival footage from WWI, and the docuseries “The Beatles: Get Back.”
As previously announced, Sourh Korean director Park Chan wook will preside over this year’s jury. The festival will take place May 12-23 and the lineup will be unveiled in Paris on April 9.
From Variety US