The Locarno Film Festival will bestow its Vision Award, presented by Ticinomoda, upon Rick Baker, the seven-time Oscar winner behind some of cinema’s most fantastical creatures.
Baker will receive the award in the Swiss town’s Piazza Grande on the evening of Wednesday, Aug. 12. He will also present, within the festival program, two key films from his career, namely An American Werewolf in London (1981) and The Nutty Professor (1996).
“From his early make-up work on genre films in the 1970s to his sophisticated creature and character designs for large-scale studio productions, Rick Baker has forged a new visual grammar for cinematic metamorphosis, earning him a record number of Academy Awards for best makeup and cementing his status as a reference point for generations of artists,” said Locarno organizers. “Over his long career, Rick Baker has transformed Michael Jackson into a zombie in Thriller and turned Jim Carrey into the Grinch.”
It concluded: “He has been responsible for crafting unforgettable werewolves to some of the most realistic gorillas ever created for film, each time redefining the audience’s sense of what is real and what is imagined on the big screen.”
The Vision Award pays tribute to someone whose creative work has contributed to the renewal of the cinematographic imaginary.
“Rick Baker was responsible for a Copernican revolution in cinema: visionary and revolutionary, he opened new paths for the imagination of entire generations, showing what it truly means to witness physical transmutation on the big screen,” said Locarno artistic director Giona A. Nazzaro. “His filmography includes collaborations with George Lucas and David Cronenberg, Brian De Palma and Joe Dante, Tim Burton and Peter Jackson, John Carpenter and Mike Nichols, among many others. Presenting the Vision Award in Locarno to a pioneer and innovator like him, an absolute genius and incomparable craftsman, is an honor through which the festival celebrates the infinite possibilities of cinema and its bag of tricks.”
The 79th edition of the Locarno Film Festival runs Aug. 5-15. Darren Aronofsky will receive Locarno’s Honorary Leopard this year, Isabella Rossellini will receive its Excellence Award, Asia Argento will be honored with the Life Achievement Award, and Twin Peaks, Wild at Heart, Beverly Hills, 90210 producer Sigurjón “Joni” Sighvatsson will get the Raimondo Rezzonico Award.