ROME -- Honoring a Hollywood veteran with strong ties to Italian cinema, the Venice Intl. Film Festival will bestow the Golden Lion for career achievement on Clint Eastwood, whose latest feature, "Space Cowboys," will see its international preem at the event.
Announcement was made Thursday by Venice fest director Alberto Barbera and Paolo Baratta, president of the Biennale arts council that controls the event. The Golden Lion will be presented to Eastwood during the opening ceremony of the fest's 57th edition, which runs Aug. 30-Sept. 9.
Ceremony will be followed by a screening of Warner's "Space Cowboys," which Eastwood produced, directed and stars in with Tommy Lee Jones, James Garner and Donald Sutherland. Skedded for U.S. release Aug. 4, pic concerns four retired pilots recalled by NASA for a special mission.
While Eastwood's career as an actor began quietly in the mid 1950s, his roles in the 1960s spaghetti westerns of Italian director Sergio Leone, "A Fistful of Dollars," "For a Few Dollars More" and "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly," made him a star and cemented his indelible association with the Western genre.
The Golden Lion goes some way toward repairing a slight by the Venice fest, as Eastwood's "Unforgiven" was submitted for competition but turned down. Refusal left the selection committee with egg on its face when pic went on to international critical acclaim and Oscars for best picture and director.
Contact the Variety newsroom at
news@variety.com