The much talked about Golden Lion Awards for Lifetime Achievement were presented to five key Pixarians today at the 66th Annual Venice International Film Festival.
Specifically, it’s the gang of Pixar directors; John Lasseter, Pete Docter, Andrew Stanton, Brad Bird and Lee Unkrich! @DisneyPixar tweeted live at the event posting pictures and quotes from the honorees.
"Our goal has always been simple: to entertain our audience around the world." said Lasseter. That’s something the studio has surely achieved so it’s no surprise that the talented team was chosen to receive this "tremendous honor." After all, the award is presented to those who have contributed largely to cinema.
The group of highly acclaimed filmmakers were greeted by reporters and fans as the stepped onto the Pixar-themed red carpet. First arrived Pete Docter, then Brad Bird, followed by Lee Unkrich and Andrew Stanton. Last but not least was the studio’s Chief Creative Officer John Lasseter. I guess this is what it would be like to see the most famous faces of Pixar all in one place!
Special presenter George Lucas was full of praise, "I think Walt would be very proud that these are the guys carrying on the family business." Considering he sold Pixar over 20 years ago and saw it become the success that it is today, Lucas is a good sport.
Also of note, Toy Story and Toy Story 2 in 3D premiered at the festival! I’m sure the double feature screening went very well. The re-release will be playing in US theatres (for two weeks only) in about 25 days, October 2nd to be exact. You can swing on over to (edited for relevancy) Disney Living’s YouTube for the third in the series of John Lasseter Toy Story Collection blogs, this time featuring the "ferocious" dinosaur Rex!
To learn more about the Venice International Film Festival, drop by their official site. Browse through more pictures and quotes from the Pixar festivities at Disney/Pixar’s official Twitter. Stitch Kingdom also has a great photo gallery up. For more media coverage, read The Associated Press’ write-up.
A huge congratulations to the Pixar team on this monumental win!
Last modified: September 6, 2009
A little note on this article. Sorry for the delay on writing this up. I literally wrote this up 4 times, with every time a new failure keeping me from posting it. The most common was the post actually mysteriously deleting. Hope it’s still good. 🙂
I can’t find the Rex clip anywhere! Are you sure it’s there?
At the time of publishing it was. Disney.com replaced it with other videos today since it’s a new week. If you have Disney Channel, they play The Toys Are Back featurettes quite a bit. It’s no big deal though, don’t worry if you missed it.