Italian director and screenwriter Francesco Rosi has been awarded the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement of the 69^th Venice International Film Festival of the Biennale di Venezia (29 August – 8 September 2012).

The decision was made by the Board of Directors of the Biennale chaired by Paolo Baratta, on the recommendation by the Director of the Venice Film Festival Alberto Barbera.

Francesco Rosi is considered a symbol and innovator of socially-committed Italian filmmaking, the author of important and significant films such as Le mani sulla città (Hands over the City), winner of the Golden Lion at the Venice International Film Festival in 1963, Il caso Mattei (The Mattei Affair), Golden Palm at Cannes in 1972, and Salvatore Giuliano, Silver Bear in Berlin in 1961.

Francesco Rosi, who will turn 90 on November 15th this year, will be given the award on August 31st, on the occasion of the screening of the restored copy of his masterpiece Il caso Mattei (The Mattei Affair, 1972), a restoration completed by Martin Scorsese’s non-profit organization, The Film Foundation, with support from Gucci.

The Director of the Venice Film Festival, Alberto Barbera, has declared: “In his long though not very prolific career, Rosi has left an indelible mark on the history of Italian filmmaking after World War II. His work has influenced generations of filmmakers around the world for its method, style, moral severity and the ability to bring urgent social issues onto the screen. For this reason he has repeatedly been associated with post-war Neorealism and is considered the founding father of the activist film movement that was so important to our national production in the Sixties and Seventies. In comparison with Neo-realism, which was so influential in his cultural education, Rosi’s cinema went much further in its deliberate intent to combine a keen proclivity for narrating real events, people and places with what Fellini defined as “the great crafting heritage of good American cinema”. As for the political filmmaking that came after him, Rosi has one unquestionable quality: unlike the ideological simplification of many of his followers, he always preferred the incredibly demanding process of research and documentation that provided the basis for his formidable masterpieces such as Salvatore Giuliano, La sfida, Le mani sulla città (Hands over The City), Il caso Mattei (The Mattei Affair), and Lucky Luciano. A precise lesson in history that coincides with a sophisticated lesson in style, which brought vitality and substance to his other unforgettable works, the most significant of which are Cristo si è fermato a Eboli (Christ Stopped at Eboli), Cadaveri eccellenti and Tre fratelli (Three Brothers)”.