Italian film director Pupi Avati is
to get the David di Donatello career achievement award at the
awards ceremony on May 7, organisers said Thursday.
Bologna-born Avati, 86, is known to horror film fans for his two
giallo masterpieces, The House with Laughing Windows (1976) and
Zeder (1983).
But he directed many genres of film, including horrors, medieval
period pieces, dramas, jazz comedies, buddy comedies, biopics
and others, proving himself to be a very versatile director.
During his career as a director, screenwriter, and producer,
Avati was nominated for the Golden Palm, Silver Ribbons, David
di Donatello Awards, and many others.
He won two David di Donatello Awards and five Silver Ribbons.
"The Academy of Italian Cinema is honored to award the David for
Lifetime Achievement to Pupi Avati, a multifaceted talent as a
director, writer, screenwriter, musician and producer, in an
indestructible duo with his brother Antonio," declared the
president and artistic director of the academy, Piera Detassis.
"A great auteur and storyteller, he has recounted the lost time
of the province, with its laziness, ferocity and fears, the
frightening breath of monsters imagined as a boy in the
countryside, but also the desire for redemption and the drive to
pursue one's dreams.
"Undisputed creator of the Padanian Gothic with The House of
Laughing Windows up to the recent Mr. Devil and The American
Garden, Avati immerses himself with enchantment and magic in the
Emilian autobiography and digs with light, never showy touches,
into the petty bourgeois and rural unconscious, drawing signs of
humanity from the gray lives, redeemed by poetry and hope, in a
mosaic, collective, tale of friendship and familiar, as happens
in his many masterpieces.
"His special authorial grace touches the actors, exalted in
often surprising roles, from Lino Capolicchio to Carlo Delle
Piane, from Gianni Cavina to Silvio Orlando, from Diego
Abatantuono to Renato Pozzetto, from Neri Marcorè to Alba
Rohrwacher and Elena Sofia Ricci, to compose a geography of
different faces and humanity, to discover a poetic Italy far
from the limelight".
The award will be presented on Wednesday 7 May during the live
awards ceremony, in prime time on Rai 1, from the Cinecittà
studios and broadcast in 4K (on the Rai4K channel, number 210 of
Tivùsat).
The 2025 edition will be hosted by Elena Sofia Ricci and Mika.
The evening will also be live on Rai Radio2 - hosted by Carolina
Di Domenico - and will be available on the RaiPlay platform.
Among the awards already announced for the 70th edition of the
David di Donatello Awards, the Special David to Ornella Muti,
the David dello Spettatore to Diamanti by Ferzan Özpetek and the
David for Best International Film to Anora by Sean Baker.
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