Yesterday the 67th Berlin Film Festival announced its jury, homage subject and Golden Camera recipients. The jury president Paul Verhoeven will be joined by actors Maggie Gyllenhaal, Diego Luna, and Julia Jentsch, producer Dora Bouchoucha Fourati, artist Olafur Eliasson and director-screenwriter Wang Quan'an. The recipients of this year's Berlinale Camera will be Hong Kong film producer and distributor Nansun Shi, actor Geoffrey Rush, and eminent Egyptian film critic and author Samir Farid.
Oscar-winning costume designer Milena Canonero will instead receive the Honorary Golden Bear for her lifetime achievement.
In a press release on the Berlinale site, Director Dieter Kosslick stated: "Milena Canonero is an extraordinary costume designer. With her designs she has contributed decisively to the style of many cinematic masterpieces. With this year's Homage, we would like to honour a great artist as well as direct attention to another film profession."
Born in Turin, Canonero grew up in Genoa where she studied design and costume before moving to England. She started working in film with Stanley Kubrick, designing unforgettable costumes for A Clockwork Orange (1971), Barry Lyndon (1975; winning for it her first Academy Award), and The Shining (1980). Shortly after the latter, she received her second Oscar for the costumes in Hugh Hudson's Chariots of Fire (1981).
She continued collaborating with famous directors on prestigious films in the years that followed: her filmography includes (among the others) Francis F. Coppola's Godfather III (1990), Sydney Pollock's Out of Africa (1985), Warren Beatty's Dick Tracy (1990) and Sofia Coppola's Marie Antoinette (2006) that won her a third Oscar.
She also designed costumes for opera productions at La Scala, The Vienna Opera House, The Metropolitan Opera and the Garnier Opera de Paris.
In more recent years she worked on quite a few films with Wes Anderson, including The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2004), The Darjeeling Limited (2007), and The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014), for which she received her fourth Oscar.
Canonero has multiple connections with the world of fashion since her costumes often inspired designers.
After she created the costumes for Chariots of Fire, enchanted by the impeccable 1920s styles donned by the protagonists, Ralph Lauren and Jeffrey Banks took inspiration from the movie for their own collections, while the Italian costume designer was invited to create a line of clothes for Norman Hilton that eventually won her a Coty Award.
Marie Antoinette inspired instead multiple fashion collections, photo shoots and covers on glossy magazines.
In the last few years Canonero collaborated with Italian fashion designer Miuccia Prada, who holds her in high esteem and considers her the greatest costume designer ever.
In 2013 Canonero designed the costumes for Prada's advert "Castello Cavalcanti", starring Jason Schwartzman and Giada Colagrande, and written and directed by Wes Anderson.
In 2015 the costume designer was also invited to interpret the Spring collection in Prada's store in Rue du Faubourg Saint- Honoré, Paris, as part of "The Iconoclasts" collaborative series. Her installations for the windows was based on the ancient categorizations of the natural elements.
Two years ago Canonero also co-directed an advert for Amaro Lucano and she is currently developing a documentary about Italian costume and production designer Piero Tosi.
The Berlin Film Festival will screen ten movies featuring Canonero's costumes including Barry Lyndon, Chariots Of Fire, A Clockwork Orange and The Shining. The winners of this Berlinale (eighteen films will be competing for the Golden Bear) will be announced on February 18th, while Canonero will be presented with the Honorary Golden Bear at the Berlinale Palast on February 16.
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