The death of the great director William Friedkin

The President, the General Manager, the Board of Directors, the Director of the Venice International Film Festival and La Biennale di Venezia in its entirety remember the director William Friedkin with deep emotion and admiration. With him goes one of the great masters of modern and contemporary American cinema.

William Friedkin was expected at the 80th Venice International Film Festival this year with his latest masterpiece The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial, and with the restored version of a cinema, and not just horror, classic such as The Exorcist (1973).

At the Venice International Film Festival in 2013 William Friedkin was awarded the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement, with the motivation that he had contributed in a significant and revolutionary way to the profound renewal of American cinema regarded as the New Hollywood. “Friedkin revolutionized the popular genres of the crime film and the horror film – the Director of the Venice International Film Festival Alberto Barbera had stated at the time – basically inventing the modern blockbuster with The French Connection (1971) and The Exorcist (1973).  He was the director of films far ahead of their time, such as Sorcerer (1977), Cruising (1980), To Live and Die in L.A. (1985)”.

William Friedkin participated several times in the Venice International Film Festival, winning audience and critical acclaim, especially in 1995 with Jade, presented in the Notti veneziane section, and in 2011 with the highly acclaimed Killer Joe, presented in Competition.