RICHARD LINKLATER, BCN FILM FEST 2024 AWARD OF HONOUR
Linklater will travel to Barcelona to receive the Honorary Award during the Closing Gala, where he will present his latest work.
American director Richard Linklater will receive the BCN FILM FEST 2024 Honorary Award. Linklater will receive the award at the festival's Closing Gala, to be held on 26 April at the Verdi Cinemas in Barcelona, where he will present his latest film, "Hit Man", an unusual comedy that was hailed at the Venice Film Festival as one of the best works of his career. The festival is awarding him the Prize of Honour, which last year went to Wim Wenders, in recognition of the career of one of the most relevant and personal directors in contemporary world cinema, the author of films that have left their mark on different generations of film enthusiasts.
Born in Houston in 1960, Linklater is one of the leading exponents of independent cinema in the 1990s. His filmography includes "Slacker" (1990), "Dazed and confused" (1993), his acclaimed trilogy "Before Sunrise" (1995), "Before Sunset" (2004) and "Before Midnight" (2013), starring Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy, and "Apollo 10 1/2: A Space Age Adventure" (2022). With "Boyhood" (2014), shot intermittently over 12 years with the same actors, Linklater won great acclaim from audiences and critics, and awards such as the Silver Bear for Best Director at the Berlin Film Festival, 3 Golden Globes, 2 Spirit Awards and the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for Patricia Arquette. He is the Artistic Director of the Austin Film Society, one of the largest film organisations in the country, which operates a movie theatre showing films from around the world, manages a film studio and has awarded more than $2.2 million in grants to Texas filmmakers.
"Hit Man", closing film of the festival
Linklater's new film, "Hit Man" will close this year's BCN FILM FEST. After its screening at the Venice Film Festival, the Barcelona audience will be able to enjoy the Spanish premiere of the film. Oscar-nominated director Richard Linklater's luminous neo-noir is co-written by Linklater and Glen Powell and inspired by an incredible true story. Powell plays a priggish professor who discovers he has a hidden talent as a fake hit man. He finds a client who steals his heart and ignites a powder keg of deceit, pleasure and mistaken identities. "Hit Man is a clever existential comedy about identity.
Synopsis
Gary Johnson works as a fake hit man for the New Orleans Police Department. With a supernatural gift for inhabiting different guises and personalities to entrap hapless people hoping to take down their enemies, Gary descends into morally dubious territory when he becomes attracted to one such potential criminal, a beautiful young woman named Madison (Adria Arjona). As Madison falls in love with one of Gary's hit men, the mysteriously sexy Ron, their steamy romance sets off a chain reaction of theatrics, deception and ever-increasing stakes.
