Acclaimed artist and filmmaker Julian Schnabel will be honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award at this year’s Lucca Film Festival, recognizing his contributions to both cinema and the visual arts. The festival announced the honor on Friday, confirming that Schnabel will travel to Lucca, Tuscany, to receive the award during the event, where he will also take part in a public masterclass and a retrospective celebrating his filmmaking career.
The award adds another major recognition to Schnabel’s decades-long career as one of the few contemporary artists to achieve international acclaim in both painting and filmmaking. Over the years, his films have premiered at leading international festivals and earned recognition at the Cannes Film Festival, the Academy Awards, and other major industry events.
As part of the tribute, the Lucca Film Festival will present a retrospective of Schnabel’s work, giving audiences the opportunity to revisit some of his most celebrated films. The retrospective will conclude with a screening of his latest feature, In the Hand of Dante, during which the filmmaker will officially receive the Lifetime Achievement Award.
In the Hand of Dante is one of the year’s most anticipated literary adaptations. The Netflix-backed feature is based on Nick Tosches’ acclaimed 2002 novel of the same name and premiered out of competition at the 2025 Venice International Film Festival. The film features an ensemble cast led by Oscar Isaac, Gal Gadot, and Gerard Butler, while also starring Jason Momoa, Al Pacino, Martin Scorsese, John Malkovich, Sabrina Impacciatore, and Franco Nero.
The story unfolds across two parallel narratives. One follows writer Nick Tosches after he becomes involved with a manuscript believed to be an original copy of Dante Alighieri’s The Divine Comedy, drawing him into a dangerous criminal underworld. Running alongside that contemporary storyline is a historical narrative centered on Dante himself, exploring the poet’s life, exile, and the creation of one of literature’s most influential works. Oscar Isaac portrays dual roles that connect both timelines.
The film represents Schnabel’s first feature since At Eternity’s Gate, the 2018 biographical drama about Vincent van Gogh starring Willem Dafoe. That performance earned Dafoe an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor and further strengthened Schnabel’s reputation for bringing celebrated artists and historical figures to the screen through an intimate and visually distinctive style.
Before becoming an internationally recognized filmmaker, Schnabel established himself as one of the leading figures in the contemporary art world. His transition into directing began with Basquiat (1996), a biographical drama about artist Jean-Michel Basquiat that marked his feature directorial debut. He followed it with Before Night Falls (2000), chronicling the life of Cuban writer Reinaldo Arenas, with Javier Bardem earning an Academy Award nomination for his performance.
Schnabel’s greatest critical success arrived with The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (2007), adapted from Jean-Dominique Bauby’s memoir. The film won Schnabel the Best Director Award at the Cannes Film Festival and received four Academy Award nominations, including Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay. Widely regarded as one of the defining films of his career, it established him among the most respected filmmakers working in biographical and literary cinema.
He later directed Miral (2010), based on Rula Jebreal’s novel, before returning to the art world with At Eternity’s Gate, which explored Vincent van Gogh’s final years. Throughout his filmography, Schnabel has consistently focused on artists, writers, and historical figures whose lives were shaped by creativity, conflict, and personal struggle.
Alongside the Lifetime Achievement Award ceremony, festival audiences will have the opportunity to hear directly from Schnabel during a public masterclass, where he is expected to discuss his career across painting and filmmaking, his approach to visual storytelling, and the process of adapting complex literary and historical material for the screen.
The Lucca Film Festival has built a reputation for celebrating internationally renowned filmmakers through retrospectives, public conversations, and special honors. By recognizing Julian Schnabel with its Lifetime Achievement Award, the festival adds another distinguished name to its list of honorees while highlighting a career that has successfully bridged the worlds of contemporary art and international cinema.
Schnabel will receive the award during the festival’s screening of In the Hand of Dante, with the retrospective and masterclass offering audiences a comprehensive look at the work of one of modern cinema’s most distinctive visual storytellers.
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