New Zealand filmmaker Peter Jackson will receive an honorary Palme d’Or at the 79th Cannes Film Festival (May 12-23).
Jackson will receive the award at the festival’s opening ceremony on Tuesday, May 12.
“To be honoured with an Honorary Palme d’Or at Cannes is one of the greatest privileges of my career,” said The Lord Of The Rings director Jackson, who described the festival as “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,” said Jackson. “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.”
A festival statement recalled screening the first footage and images of The Fellowship Of The Ring to press at Cannes in 2001, ahead of its global release.
The Lord Of The Rings film series went on to win 17 Oscars and take $3bn in revenue. The festival statement said Jackson has “a body of work that blends Hollywood blockbusters and films d’auteur with extraordinary artistic vision and technological audacity”.
Festival president Iris Knobloch called Jackson “a filmmaker of boundless creativity who has brought prestige to the heroic fantasy genre.”
Festival director Thierry Fremaux said that 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. He has permanently transformed Hollywood cinema and its conception of the spectacle. 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?”
Alongside The Lord Of The Rings films and The Hobbit trilogy, Jackson’s credits include Heavenly Creatures, The Lovely Bones, King Kong and They Shall Not Grow Old.
Last year, Robert De Niro received an honorary Palme d’Or, with another surprise honorary award given to Denzel Washington during the festival. Previous recipients include Meryl Streep, Catherine Deneuve, Jane Fonda, Agnes Varda, Forest Whitaker and Jodie Foster.
Cannes will unveil its official selection on April 9, and South Korean filmmaker Park Chan-wook has been confirmed as this year’s Competition jury president.
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