Bill Murray to Receive Lifetime Achievement Award From Wes Anderson at Rome Festival

By Nick Vivarelli

LOS ANGELES (Variety.com) – The Rome Film Festival will celebrate Bill Murray with its lifetime achievement award, which will be presented to him by Wes Anderson.

Anderson, who has directed Murray in some of his most iconic roles, most notably in “The Royal Tenenbaums,” and in several other films such as “The Darjeeling Limited,” “Moonrise Kingdom” and “Grand Budapest Hotel,” is also scheduled to take part in an onstage conversation in Rome with Murray about the actor’s career.

The fest’s artistic director Antonio Monda also announced Monday that Oscar-winning director Ron Howard will be coming to the Eternal City to launch his “Pavarotti” documentary, which will be screening in the official selection. Howard will hold an onstage conversation.

Other prominent film personalities booked for Rome’s Close Encounters onstage chats, which are becoming one of the fest’s trademarks under Monda’s guidance, are French filmmakers Olivier Assayas and Bertrand Tavernier and American writer Bret Easton Ellis.

Japan’s Kore-eda Hirokazu, winner of this year’s foreign-language Oscar for “Shoplifters,” will make the trek to Rome to be honored with a retrospective and to hold a Close Encounter. Another retrospective will be dedicated to German master Max Ophüls.

Rome this year will also pay tribute to late Italian director Gillo Pontecorvo on the centennial of this birth with a freshly restored version of his Oscar-nominated 1959 holocaust drama “Kapò.”

The 14th edition of the Rome fest will run Oct. 17-27.