Mostra Internazionale d Arte Cinematografica Venice

Tuesday September 2nd, at 5.15 pm in the Sala Grande (Palazzo del Cinema)

09 | 02 | 2014

The award ceremony for the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement to Thelma Schoomaker will be held on Tuesday September 2nd at 5.15 pm in the Sala Grande (Palazzo del Cinema) (access: public, all accredited visitors).During the ceremony a video-message from Martin Scorsese will be projected.

 

Thelma Schoonmaker is widely acknowledged as one of the most remarkable film editors working today, as proven by the three Oscars (Raging Bull, The Aviator, The Departed) and the two BAFTAs (Raging Bull, Goodfellas) she has won over the course of her lengthy career. Her collaboration with director Martin Scorsese began in 1967 when she edited Who’s That Knocking at my Door.Since 1980 she has edited all of Scorsese’s feature-length films including the most recent, The Wolf of Wall Street (2013). In addition to her activity as a film editor, Schoonmaker works relentlessly to promote the films and writings of director Michael Powell, her late husband. With Thelma Schoonmaker, this is the first time that the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement has been awarded by the Venice Film Festival to an artist in the field of film editing.

 

Two American filmmakers, film editor Thelma Schoonmaker and film director Frederick Wiseman, are the recipients of the Golden Lions for Lifetime Achievement of the 71st Venice International Film Festival (27 August – 6 September 2014).

 

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

Thelma Schoonmaker Powell was born in Algiers, Algeria, where her father worked for the Standard Oil Company. She grew up on the island of Aruba and after returning to the United States, attended Cornell University, where she studied political science and Russian, intending to become a diplomat. While doing graduate work at Columbia University, she answered a New York Times ad that offered on-the-job training as an assistant film editor. The exposure to the field sparked a desire to learn more about film editing, and her career was set. During a six-week summer course at New York University’s film school she met Martin Scorsese and Michael Wadleigh. Within a few years she was editing Scorsese’s first feature, Who’s that Knocking at My Door (1967). She then edited a series of films and commercials before supervising the editing of Wadleigh’s 1971 film Woodstock, for which she was nominated for an Academy Award. In 1981 she won the Academy Award, the American Cinema Editors Eddie Award, and the BAFTA Award for her editing of Scorsese’s Raging Bull (1980). Since then, she has worked on all of Scorsese’s feature films: The King of Comedy (1982),After Hours (1985), The Color of Money (1986), The Last Temptation of Christ (1988), New York Stories (1989, the Life Lessons segment), GoodFellas(1990), which earned her another BAFTA Award and another Oscar nomination, Cape Fear (1991), The Age of Innocence (1993), Casino (1995), Kundun(1997), A Personal Journey with Martin Scorsese through American Movies (1995, Martin Scorsese’s documentary on the first 100 years of American film), Bringing out the Dead (1999), Il Mio Viaggio in Italia (2001, Martin Scorsese’s documentary on the Italian Cinema), Gangs of New York (2002) for which she earned another Oscar nomination and won the American Cinema Editors Eddie Award for Best Dramatic Film Editing, The Aviator(2004), for which she won her second Academy Award and the American Cinema Editors Eddie Award for Best Dramatic Film Editing, The Departed(2006) for which she won her third Academy Award and her fourth American Cinema Editors Eddie Award for Best Dramatic Film Editing (tied with Babel), Shutter Island (2010), Hugo (2011) for which she received an Oscar nomination, an American Cinema Editors Best Dramatic Film Editing nomination and a BAFTA nomination, and most recently The Wolf of Wall Street (2013) for which she received an American Cinema Editors nomination and a BAFTA nomination. In addition to editing, she works tirelessly to promote the films and writings of her late husband, the film director Michael Powell: The Red Shoes (1948), Black Narcissus (1947), The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943), I Know where I’m Going (1945), A Matter of Life and Death (1946), The Tales of Hoffmann (1951), Peeping Tom (1960).