Italian director and producer Luca Guadagnino (After the Hunt, Challengers, Bones and All) has been named the recipient of the Cartier Glory to the Filmmaker Award of the 83rd Venice International Film Festival.
The award is given to a person who has made a particularly original contribution to the contemporary film industry.
Luca Guadagnino in accepting the award, said, “It might seem like a rhetorical gesture to say I am honored to receive the Glory to the Filmmaker award, but it is the plain truth for many reasons. To be honored for one’s craft or life as a filmmaker is an ambition that no one who makes films could ever presume to imagine achieving—especially by joining a group of filmmakers who have received this prestigious honor before me and to whom I owe so much of my development. So, I want to emphasize once again what an honor it is to receive this award, especially from Alberto Barbera and La Biennale di Venezia. Thank you, thank you!”
Welcoming this announcement, the Director of the Venice Film Festival Alberto Barbera commented, “The Glory to the Filmmaker Award celebrates in Luca Guadagnino an author who has managed to transform his curiosity into a form of creative freedom. Defying alignment with any single school or movement, he has established himself as a global director, capable of working with leading international actors and producers. He has navigated diverse genres—from melodrama to horror, coming-of-age to psychological thriller—while maintaining a consistent and recognizable voice, without ever losing a deeply Italian identity in portraying bodies, settings, and history. His is a vital cinema that does not shy away from risk: nomadic, sensual, sophisticated yet widely accessible, where intellectual provocation and emotion, memory and modernity coexist brilliantly. Glory to the Filmmaker honors the originality of a vision that has succeeded in renewing the language of contemporary cinema, celebrating a career that has brought Italian auteurship into a true dialogue with the entire world.”
Guadagnino recently premiered After the Hunt (2025), Queer (2024) and Bones and All (2022) at the Mostra, winning the Silver Lion for Best Director for the latter. Previously, Guadagnino premiered several films in Venice: The Protagonists (1999), Io sono l’amore (2009), Bertolucci on Bertolucci (2013), A Bigger Splash (2015), Suspiria (2018), Salvatore: The Shoemaker of Dreams (2020). He is the writer, director, and producer of Call Me by Your Name, which is an Academy Award nominee for Best Picture. Guadagnino has served as President of the Jury of the Beirut International Film Festival (2011) and the 68th San Sebastián Festival.
Directed by Luca Guadagnino, Joie de vivre is produced by MeMo Films. The over 7-hour-long film (435 minutes) is a love letter to Bernardo Bertolucci, one of the most celebrated and influential filmmakers of the 20th century. It will be an exploration of his cinema, his art, and his life. The documentary will also benefit from the collaboration of several prominent figures in the film world. Bernardo Bertolucci inspired generations of directors, both his contemporaries and those who followed his work.
The 83rd Venice International Film Festival takes place September 2nd – 12th, 2026, and the award ceremony for Luca Guadagnino will take place on Tuesday, September 8th in the Sala Casinò (Palazzo del Casinò), before the screening Out of Competition of his new documentary, Joie de vivre.
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