Isabella Rossellini

Courtesy of Paola Kudacki, Trunk Archive

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The Locarno Film Festival will celebrate Italian-American actress, model, filmmaker and icon Isabella Rossellini with its Excellence Award at its 79th edition this summer. Rossellini will be honored on the opening night of the festival, Wednesday Aug. 5 in the picturesque Swiss town’s Piazza Grande.

“An icon of contemporary cinema, television, and fashion whose name is virtually synonymous with artistic daring and technical excellence, Rossellini has long fused the technical brilliance of Hollywood with the European spirit of artistic fearlessness across an extraordinary, multi-faceted, decades-long career,” Locarno organizers highlighted. “After first making a major cultural impact as a model, Rossellini seared herself into the collective imagination as the haunting Dorothy Vallens in David Lynch’s masterpiece Blue Velvet (1986), a role that blended glamour, raw vulnerability, and unforgettable intensity.”

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Added the festival: “Born of cinema royalty, Rossellini has left her distinct mark on film history, forging a career featuring collaborations with filmmakers like Robert Zemeckis, David O. Russell, Taylor Hackford, Marjane Satrapi, Guy Maddin, the Taviani brothers, or of course, most memorably of all, David Lynch, delivering remarkable performances that have given powerful but elusive voice to their diverse visions. From those classics to recent triumphs like Alice Rohrwacher’s La Chimera (2023) or Edward Berger’s Conclave (2024) – for which she received a best supporting actress nomination at the 97th Academy Awards – Rossellini’s poised yet electric screen presence remains an indelible, undeniable part of contemporary cinema.”

At Locarno, Rossellini, who holds a master’s degree in Animal Behavior and Conservation from Hunter College in New York, will appear in a public conversation and present “her witty, self-directed” web series Green Porno (2008-2009), in which she acted out animal mating rituals in costume “with deadpan comic genius,” as well as My Dad Is 100 Years Old (Guy Maddin, 2005), Seduce Me (2010), Mammas (2013), Darwin, What? and Darwin, What? What? (co-directed with Paul David Magid, both 2020), and an excerpt from Animals Distract Me (2011).

“Isabella Rossellini is a true legend of contemporary cinema,” said Locarno artistic director Giona A. Nazzaro. “A singular talent who has always fully embraced the thrill of artistic risk, reinvention, and fearless creative transformation. Joyfully unconventional, consistently brilliant in her characterizations and choices, Rossellini has made unpredictability her ultimate artistic signature.”

And he concluded: “She remains a visionary and incomparable performer and self-deprecating genius whose profound presence has left an indelible mark on contemporary cinema through her boundless talent and deep humanity.”

Locarno recently unveiled that U.S. filmmaker Darren Aronofsky will receive its Honorary Leopard this year.

Among the big names who have previously received Locarno’s Excellence Award are the likes of Susan Sarandon, John Malkovich, Willem Dafoe, Michel Piccoli, Anjelica Huston, Carmen Maura, Isabelle Huppert, Gael García Bernal, Charlotte Rampling, Edward Norton, Bill Pullman, Ethan Hawke, Song Kang-Ho, Laetitia Casta, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Riz Ahmed, Mélanie Laurent and Guillaume Canet, and, last year, Golshifteh Farahani.

The 79th Locarno Film Festival takes place Aug. 5-15.

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Isabella Rossellini to Receive Locarno Film Festival Excellence Award