James Gray to Be Honored With Locarno Film Festival Career Award
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- James Gray will receive the Pardo alla Carriera career award on Aug. 9 at the 79th Locarno Film Festival (running Aug. 5–15), the fest announced, with his most recent film 'Paper Tiger' screening at the Piazza Grande.
- 'Paper Tiger', set in 1986, follows brothers Irwin (Miles Teller) and Gary Pearl (Adam Driver), with the younger brother entangled with the Russian mob after a get-rich-quick Gowanus Canal cleanup scheme; the film launched at Cannes in May and will have its North American premiere as the opening night film of the 64th New York Film Festival on Sept. 25.
- Two earlier Gray films — 'We Own the Night' (2007) and 'Two Lovers' (2008) — will also screen at Locarno as part of the tribute.
- Locarno's statement traced Gray's career from his 1994 Venice Silver Lion win for 'Little Odessa' at age 25 through 'The Immigrant' (2013), noting his recurring focus on New York's Russian-Jewish community and the 'elusive promise of the American dream,' with later genre-expanding work including 'The Lost City of Z' (2016), 'Ad Astra' (2019) and 'Armageddon Time' (2022).
- Artistic director Giona A. Nazzaro called Gray 'the last great novelist of American cinema' and praised his humanist sensibility and 'profound cinephile knowledge.'
- Past Pardo alla Carriera recipients include Francesco Rosi, Bruno Ganz, Claudia Cardinale, Johnnie To, Harry Belafonte, Jane Birkin, Costa-Gavras, Tsai Ming-liang, Shah Rukh Khan and Jackie Chan.
Why it matters: The Locarno honor, coming 32 years after Gray's Venice Silver Lion for 'Little Odessa,' formally cements the U.S. filmmaker's standing as a festival-circuit mainstay at a moment when his new 'Paper Tiger' is about to anchor two major festival showcases — Locarno's Piazza Grande and New York Film Festival's opening night — just months after its Cannes launch.
