Venice Film Festival To Honor Jamie Lee Curtis With Lifetime Achievement Award

Hollywoodreporter.com: Jamie Lee Curtis will receive the Golden Lion for lifetime achievement at this year’s Venice Film Festival.

The actress, known for the legendary Halloween franchise alongside a wide array of titles include Knives Out, Trading Places, Freaky Friday, True Lies, Blue Steel, A Fish Called Wanda, My Girl and Forever Young, will be the given the honor on September 8th before the out-of-competition screening of Halloween Kills.

“Jamie Lee Curtis belongs to that rarefied group of Hollywood actors who best reflect the qualities that are the very soul of the global film industry and its legacy,” said festival director Alberto Barbera. “A direct descendant of America’s film aristocracy – she is the daughter of two unforgettable stars, Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh – Jamie Lee Curtis is the natural embodiment of a star who knows how to play roles with versatility and amenability, all while infusing them with her peerless charisma and signature personality.”

From Universal Pictures, Miramax, Blumhouse Productions and Trancas International Films, Halloween Kills is the sequel to David Gordon Green’s Halloween reboot, which earned more than $250 million worldwide, becoming the highest-grossing chapter in the four-decade franchise and setting a new record for the biggest opening weekend in history for a horror film starring a woman.

“I am incredibly humbled to be honored in this way by the Venice International Film Festival,” said Curtis. “It seems impossible to me that I’ve been in this industry long enough to be receiving ‘Lifetime Achievement’ recognition, and to have it happen now, with Halloween Kills, is particularly meaningful to me. Halloween—and my partnership with Laurie Strode—launched and sustained my career, and to have these films evolve into a new franchise that is beloved by audiences around the world was, and remains, a gift.

Curtis added that Italian Cinema had “always honored and heralded the genre that gave me my career,” saying that she “couldn’t be more proud and happy to accept this award from the Venice International Film Festival on behalf of Laurie and all the courageous heroines of the world who stand tall in the face of seemingly insurmountable obstacles and refuse to yield.”