Pietro Scalia, the twice Oscar-winning film editor, known for his work with Ridley Scott (Gladiator, The Martin, Black Hawk down), Oliver Stone (JFK) and Gus Van Sant (Good Will Hunting), will receive, among others, the Vision Award Ticinomoda 2023 from the Locarno International Film Festival. The award, a lifetime achievement award, is dedicated to creatives whose work has “broadened the horizons of the cinematic image”.
Scalia will receive the award on August 3 in Locarno at a ceremony held in the festival’s legendary Piazza Grande. Locarno also screens two notable films from Scalia’s career: Good Will Hunting (1997) and Black Hawk down (2001).
Giona A. Nazzaro, Artistic Director of Locarno, said the Italian-American Scalia “was in the tradition of the great film editors of Hollywood who shaped the image of classic cinema and its subsequent transformations. (He) has revolutionized our way of thinking about how each image connects to the next.In his collaborations with Bernardo Bertolucci, Ridley Scott, Sam Raimi, Michael Bay and Gus Van Sant (among many, many others), Scalia has proven his ability to explore the poetics and Both retaining and reinventing the formal research of these authors Scalia’s editing work has influenced generations of young filmmakers, providing a decisive new perspective on determining the rhythmic intervals and timing required to link images together. Scalia: an experimental genius of the gaze and musicality of montage.”
Scalia won Oscars for film editing JFK in 1992 and Black Hawk down in 2002 and was nominated for Good Will Hunting in 1998 and Gladiator in 2001. His work will subsequently be shown in FerrariMichael Mann’s highly anticipated drama about the legendary Italian automaker, starring Adam Driver, Shailene Woodley and Penélope Cruz.
The 76th Locarno International Film Festival runs from August 2 to 12.