Director and screenwriter Paul Schrader at the Lucca Film Festival
September 21-29, 2024
American director and screenwriter Paul Schrader, who won the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement in 2022, is the first international guest announced for the Lucca Film Festival, which will take place from September 21 to 29, 2024.
On September 26, Paul Schrader will hold a public masterclass at the Cinema Astra, attended by film students from various Italian universities, and the following day he will receive the Festival’s Lifetime Achievement Award. The festival will feature a retrospective of his films, including Blue Collar, Hardcore, The Comfort of Strangers, Affliction, Auto Focus, The Walker, The Canyons, The Card Counter, Master Gardener, Mishima, and First Reformed.
Paul Schrader will also hold a masterclass at the Cinema Godard of the Prada Foundation in Milan, which in September will present a selection of his films in its monthly program.
Schrader began his career as a screenwriter for successful Martin Scorsese films such as Raging Bull and Taxi Driver. He made his directorial debut with Blue Collar, starring Richard Pryor and Harvey Keitel. In 1979, he directed Hardcore, a bleak and desperate thriller set in the adult film industry. His most well-known film to date is American Gigolo, a sophisticated thriller starring Richard Gere. Following the success of American Gigolo, Schrader decided to remake Jacques Tourneur’s Cat People (1982) with Nastassja Kinski. In 1992, he directed Light Sleeper with Willem Dafoe, and in 1997, Affliction, which received critical acclaim.
He participated in the Venice International Film Festival in 2013 with The Canyons, written by Bret Easton Ellis and starring Lindsay Lohan, and in 2017 with First Reformed, a psychological religious drama starring Ethan Hawke. This film earned Schrader his first nomination for Best Original Screenplay at the 2018 Academy Awards and is the first of a trilogy that continues with The Card Counter (2021) featuring Oscar Isaac and Tiffany Haddish, and Master Gardener (2022) starring Joel Edgerton and Sigourney Weaver.
At the most recent Cannes Film Festival, he presented Oh Canada, which he wrote and directed, starring Richard Gere and Uma Thurman. The film is distributed in Italy by Be Water and Medusa.
The Lucca Film Festival has honored international cinema greats such as Oliver Stone, David Lynch, Susan Sarandon, Isabelle Huppert, Rutger Hauer, George Romero, Paolo Sorrentino, and Willem Dafoe.
It is a highlight of Tuscany’s cultural scene, made possible with the support of the Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Lucca, the Municipality of Lucca, Vivi Lucca Events, Lands of Giacomo Puccini, and the Chamber of Commerce of North-West Tuscany. Main sponsors include Banca Generali Private Wealth Management (Paolo Tacchi) and Banca Pictet. The event is part of the National Cinema and School Images Plan promoted by MiC and MIM, and is supported by the Ministry of Culture – Directorate General for Cinema and Audiovisual, the Tuscany Region, Fondazione Sistema Toscana, Manifatture Digitali Cinema, Sofidel, Fondazione Banca del Monte di Lucca, Fondazione Giacomo Puccini and Puccini Museum – Casa Natale, Audi Center Terigi, Tenuta del Buonamico, Martinelli Luce, Naturanda, and Futuro3D. Collaborators include SIAE – Italian Society of Authors and Publishers, Tecno Servizi, Ristorante Giglio, Palazzo Pfanner, Over The Real, Teatro del Giglio di Lucca, Academy of Fine Arts of Carrara, Augusto Passaglia Artistic, Musical, and Coreutico High School, N. Machiavelli Classical High School, and ISIS Pertini.
Special thanks to ANSA, Rai Toscana, Rai Radio 3, Movieplayer.it, Film4Life, Festival Scope, A.C.S.I. – Italian Sports Centers Association, Italian Federation of Amateur Theater (FITA), Trenitalia, Fic Uicc, Cinit Ucca Arci, Fedic, Corte Tripoli, Lucca Film Club, Cineforum Ezechiele 25:17, Cinema Centrale Astra and Moderno Cinema, Cinema Arsenale, University of Pisa, University of Florence, Fondazione Carlo Ludovico Ragghianti, Pisa al Cinema, Cineteca Bologna, National Film Archive, Luigi Boccherini Music Institute, Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Italia, Donne all’Ultimo Grido Association, SPAM! Network for Contemporary Arts, Lucca Comics & Games, Photolux Festival, and Lucca Classical Music Festival.
For more information
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