Venice Film Festival to Honor Peter Weir With Career Golden Lion

The Venice Film Festival will honor Australian director and screenwriter Peter Weir – whose body of work comprises “Dead Poets Society,” “The Truman Show,” and “Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World” – with its 2024 Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement.

“With a total of only thirteen movies directed over the course of forty years, Peter Weir has secured a place in the firmament of the great directors of modern cinema,” Venice artistic director Alberto Barbera said in a statement.

Barbera added that Weir made a name for himself at the end of the 1970s as the leading figure behind the rebirth of Australian cinema thanks to two movies: “The Cars That Ate Paris” (1974) and cult classic “Picnic at Hanging Rock” (1975). The international success of his following two films, “Gallipoli” and “The Year of Living Dangerously” then “opened Hollywood’s doors.”

“Weir combines reflections on personal themes and a need to reach as vast an audience as possible,” Barbera went on to point out.

He further noted that “Weir has reinforced his own role in the Hollywood establishment, all the while keeping his distance from the American movie industry. “Witness,” “Mosquito Coast,” “Dead Poet Society,” “Fearless,” “The Truman Show,” and “Master and Commander” are the major stages of an artistic career that has conserved its underlying integrity deep within the commercial success of the movies he has made,” the Venice chief concluded.

“The Truman Show” and “Master and Commander” both world premiered in Venice.

Commented Weir: “The Venice Film Festival and its Golden Lion are part of the folklore of our craft. To be singled out as a recipient for a lifetime’s work as a director is a considerable honour.”

The 81st edition of Venice will run Aug. 28-Sept. 7