New Zealand film icon Peter Jackson will receive an honorary Palme d’Or at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. The three-time Oscar-winning director, known for the blockbuster Lord of the Rings trilogy, will receive the honor at the opening ceremony of the 79th annual film festival on May 12.
Jackson joins a prestigious list of past Cannes Honorary Palmer Prize winners, including Agnes Varda, Marco Verrocchio, Jodie Foster, Meryl Streep, Robert De Niro and Tom Cruise.
In awarding the prestigious Palme d’Or, the festival said it was to honor the director for a body of work that combines Hollywood blockbusters and auteur filmmaking with “extraordinary artistic vision and technical audacity.”
“Winning the honorary Palme d’Or at Cannes is one of the greatest privileges of my career,” Jackson said. “Cannes has been a meaningful place in my filmmaking journey. In 1988, I attended the Festival Marketplace with my first film, Bad Taste, and in 2001, I screened the preview sequence for The Fellowship of the Ring. Both marked the beginning of my career. This festival has always celebrated bold and visionary films, and I am deeply grateful to the Cannes Film Festival for this recognition among the filmmakers and artists whose work continues to inspire me. ”
Jackson has a long history with Cannes. As he noted, in May 2001, he unveiled 26 minutes of footage of The Lord of the Rings: The Lord of the Rings on the Croisette, months before the film’s worldwide release. Although this presentation was initially met with skepticism, it ultimately sparked what would become one of the most successful fantasy series in film history.
Cannes President Iris Knobloch said the festival is proud to honor “a filmmaker of boundless creativity who has brought fame to the heroic fantasy genre.”
Cannes chief Thierry Frémaux added: “There is clearly a before and after Peter Jackson. Larger-than-life films are his trademark, and his comprehensive entertainment art is particularly ambitious.”
Frémaux, who has been curating the Cannes line-up for the past 25 years, praised Jackson for “forever changing the concept of Hollywood cinema and its spectacle,” adding, “But Peter Jackson is not only a great technician, but above all a great storyteller. And an unpredictable artist. What will his next world be?”
Besides the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy, Jackson directed the “King Kong” and “Hobbit” trilogies, and his early career was known for popular low-budget splatter horrors like “Bad Taste,” “Braindead” and “Meet the Feebles.” More recently, filmmakers have turned to documentaries such as They Shall Not Grow Old, which restored and colorized archive footage from World War I, and the documentary series The Beatles: Get Back.
As previously announced, this year’s jury president will be Park Chan-wook, director of the Korean film “Sourh.” The festival will run from May 12th to May 23rd, with the lineup to be announced in Paris on April 9th.
