Francis Ford Coppola gave the laudatio honoring Werner Herzog Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement during the opening ceremony on Wednesday September 27th

Francis Ford Coppola (The Godfather, Apocalypse Now, Megalopolis) gave the Laudatio honoring Werner Herzog, on the occasion of the awarding of the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement to the German director, on Wednesday August 27th in the Sala Grande of the Palazzo del Cinema (Lido di Venezia), during the Opening Ceremony of the 82nd Venice International Film Festival of La Biennale di Venezia, starting at 7 pm. 

Werner Herzog, accepting the award, said: “I feel deeply honored to receive a Lifetime Achievement Honorary Golden Lion by the Venice Biennale. I have always tried to be a Good Soldier of Cinema, and this feels like a medal for my work. Thank you. However, I have not gone into retirement. I work as always. A few weeks ago, I just finished a documentary in Africa, Ghost Elephants, and at this moment, I am shooting my next feature film, Bucking Fastard, in Ireland. I am developing an animated film, based on my novel, The Twilight World, and I am acting the voice of a creature in Bong Joon Ho’s upcoming animated film. I am not done yet”.

Regarding this award, Director Alberto Barbera declared: “A physical filmmaker and indefatigable hiker, Werner Herzog constantly crosses the planet Earth pursuing hitherto unseen images, testing our ability to look, challenging us to grasp what lies beyond the appearance of reality, and probing the limits of filmic representation in an unflagging search for a higher, ecstatic truth and new sensorial experiences. Establishing himself as one of the major innovators of New German Cinema with films such as Signs of Life;  Nosferatu the Vampyre; Aguirre, the Wrath of God; and Fitzcarraldo, Bad Lieutenant, Port of Call: New Orleans, and Grizzly Man, he has never ceased from testing the limits of the film language, belying the traditional distinction between documentary and fiction, and at the same time proposing a radical investigation of the topics of communication, the relationship between images and music, and of the infinite beauty of nature and its inevitable corruption. Herzog’s career is both fascinating and hazardous because it involves total commitment and putting oneself on the line to the point of physical risk, where catastrophe constantly lurks. A brilliant narrator of unusual stories, Herzog is also the last heir of the great tradition of German romanticism, a visionary humanist, and a tireless explorer dedicated to perpetual wandering, in search (as he said) «of a decent and fitting place for mankind, a Landscape of the Soul»”.

The documentary Megadoc by Mike Figgis (USA / 107’), part of the Venice Classics - Documentaries About Cinema section, will be presented on Thursday August 28th at 5 pm in the Sala Corinto. The film is a behind-the-scenes look at the making of Megalopolis, Francis Ford Coppola's latest feature film. The great director received the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement in 1992 at the 49th Venice Film Festival.

Werner Herzog will present his new documentary Ghost Elephants (USA / 99') Out of Competition on Thursday August 28th at 2 pm in the Sala Grande. The director will also hold a Masterclass on the same day at 4 pm at the Match Point Arena, at the Tennis Club Venezia in the Lido.

CANNES DIRECTOR'S FORTNIGHT AND CRITICS' WEEK

By Quendrith Johnson, Los Angeles Correspondent

“Imagine today’s Society as a branch of civilization about to reach a dead end.” You want to defend and explain Francis Ford Coppola’s MEGALOPOLIS just as much as narrator Laurence Fishburne, who tries to make the case during the movie that this oddball gorgeous landscape of mildly psychotic imagery is historic. You want to love Adam Driver and his maniacal urban hive-builder genius as someone amazing and heretofore unseen. “Don’t let the now destroy the forever.” But Ancient Rome intrudes along with a gaudy talent show of predictable human vices. Yet the embodiment of said worn vices is in the amazingly talented forms of wicked Shia LaBeouf, bitchy Aubrey Plaza, witchy Kathryn Hunter, even rejuvenated Dustin Hoffman.

And then you realize what you are looking at, and this is big...

Francis Ford Coppola is the first cinematic director to reach his creative singularity, the point at which artistic growth has become unsustainable with unforeseen effects on future moviegoers.

Coppola’s Artistic Singularity, that’s reason enough to set your Clockwork Orange eye-openers for this lush and unruly fable of the patriarchy’s last glimpse of a familiar universe. The place where Game of Thrones’ Nathalie Emmanuel is still carrying out someone else’s agenda. And even the dailed-up sanpaku eyes of Aubrey Plaza fail to wink out in irony at the audience at any time. “One, two, three yippee-yee.”

MEGALOPOLIS from Lionsgate opened last week, and stars Adam Driver, Giancarlo Esposito, Nathalie Emmanuel, Aubrey Plaza, Shia LaBeouf, Jon Voight, Laurence Fishburne, Kathryn Hunter, and Dustin Hoffman.

Stare at the trailer here.

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Megalopolis (Francis Ford Coppola, 2024) 1½ out of 5 stars Francis Ford Coppola, the celebrated auteur who made his name in the 1970s with such Hollywood New Wave classics as The Godfather, The Godfather Part II, The Conversation, and Apocalypse Now, is out with a new movie, Megalopolis, which he wrote as well as directed. […]

Arnold, Audiard, Baker, Coppola, Courcol, Elliot, Fargeat, Kapadia, Rasoulof, Salles, Sangsoo, Schrader and Sorrentino to compete in San Sebastian Festival’s Perlak section

‘Marco’, by Jon Garaño and Aitor Arregi, will close the section, also to show ‘The Wild Robot’ and ‘Maria Callas: Letters and Memories’ out of competition

https://youtu.be/NV9mhQyiSnc?si=bCACNQaTFlg5RHhl

The Palme d’Or and a wide representation of the award-winners from the last Festival de Cannes, the Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize at the Berlinale and the Annecy Cristal Award for Best Feature Film will compete for the City of Donostia / San Sebastian Audience Award alongside other films selected from the Venice Mostra, Toronto and other festivals. Andrea Arnold, Jacques Audiard, Sean Baker, Francis Ford Coppola, Emmanuel Courcol, Adam Elliot, Coralie Fargeat, Payal Kapadia, Mohammad Rasoulof, Walter Salles, Hong Sangsoo, Paul Schrader and Paolo Sorrentino will show their new features in a section to include three films out of competition: Marco, with which Jon Garaño and Aitor Arregi will close Perlak at the Velodrome; the animated feature film The Wild Robot, from Chris Sanders, and the non-fiction Maria Callas: Letters and Memories, from Tom Volf and Yannis Dimolitsas.

Emilia Pérez, which earned Jacques Audiard (Paris, 1952) the Jury Prize at the last Festival de Cannes, will open the Perlak competition. The female protagonists featuring Zoe Saldaña, Karla Sofía Gascón, Selena Gomez and Adriana Paz also jointly landed the Best Actress Award for this film in which a Mexican cartel leader decides to change sex in a cast also starring Edgar Ramírez. Audiard already landed the Grand Jury Prize in Cannes thanks to Un Prophète / A Prophet (2009) and the Palme d’or with Dheepan (2015), while he carried off Best Director at the Venice Mostra with Les frères Sisters / The Sisters Brothers (Perlak, 2018). In 2009 his film De battre mon coeur s'est arrêté / The Beat That My Heart Skipped (2004) participated in the themed retrospective Backwash: Cutting Edge of French cinema.

Having shown Cow (2021) as a Cannes Premiere, Andrea Arnold (Dartford, 1961) will present Bird in Perlak, a movie included in the Official Selection at Cannes, where she has won the Jury Prize on three occasions thanks to Red Road (2006), Fish Tank (2009) and American Honey (2016). The latest work from the British filmmaker tells the tale of a 12-year-old teen who lives with her father and brother in a squat in North Kent.

Anora, winning film of the last Palme d’or at Cannes, is also included in the Perlak selection, Its author, Sean Baker (Summit, 1971), follows the odyssey of a young sex worker in Brooklyn who marries a Russian oligarch. This will be the North American director’s third participation in the section after The Florida Project (Perlak, 2017), premiered in the Quinzaine des Cinéastes at Cannes and Red Rocket (Perlak, 2021), a competitor in the official selection at the Festival de Cannes.

Francis Ford Coppola (Detroit, 1939) also competed at the last edition of the French event with Megalopolis, an epic Roman fable set in an imaginary Amer

 TEN (PLUS) BETS #9 FOR TFF #51