79th Locarno Film Festival Honors Asia Argento for Her Lifetime Achievement

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• The Locarno Film Festival is presenting Asia Argento with the Life Achievement Award for her lifetime achievements.
• The Italian has made a name for herself internationally as an actress, director, and musician.
• The award will be presented to her on August 13 in Piazza Grande.

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Italian actress, filmmaker, and musician Asia Argento is receiving the Locarno Film Festival’s Life Achievement Award for her lifetime of work.

As an actress, Asia Argento has collaborated with renowned directors, including Sofia Coppola in the film “Marie Antoinette” (2006) and Abel Ferrara for “New Rose Hotel” (1998) and “Go Go Tales” (2007). She “moves effortlessly between Italian productions and international ensembles,” the Locarno Film Festival praised her in a statement on Tuesday.

Argento has twice been awarded the David di Donatello Prize for Best Actress. The award is presented by the Accademia del Cinema Italiano to national and international filmmakers and is considered the Italian equivalent of the American Oscar.

She made her directorial debut in 2000 with “Scarlet Diva”; this was followed by films such as “The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things” (2004) and “Incompresa” (2014). Always “in search of self-discovery and new forms of expression,” she has followed a creative path, the statement continued.

First role at a young age

The 50-year-old Argento is the daughter of director Dario Argento, under whom she has also taken on acting roles, and of actress Daria Nicolodi. She made her acting debut at the age of nine, and her first leading role followed at age 13.

Since 2017, she has been one of the leading figures in the #MeToo movement; she was one of the first actresses to make allegations against producer Harvey Weinstein. In 2018, she herself faced allegations that she had sexually assaulted an actor who was a minor at the time in 2013.

“Asia Argento is an artist who has always succeeded in ‘redefining filmmaking by constantly challenging herself and taking personal risks,’” said Giona A. Nazzaro, artistic director of the Locarno Film Festival, in the press release.

The 79th edition of the film festival will take place from August 5 to 15. Argento will accept her award on August 13 in the Piazza Grande and present the film “La Muerte No tiene Dueño (Death Has No Master),” which premiered this year in the Quinzaine des cinéastes section at Cannes.