Sylvester Stallone to receive Zurich Film Festival’s inaugural Golden Icon Award / 3rd Zurich Master Class: workshop with Sylvester Stallone on September 27, 2008
Academy Award® nominated Hollywood icon Sylvester Stallone will personally accept the inaugural Golden Icon Award at this year’s Zurich Film Festival on September 26, 2008. The Golden Icon Award honors the lifetime achievements of an actor or actress and will be awarded for the first time this year. The day after the award ceremony, on September 27, Stallone will give an account of his experiences as an actor, writer and director in a workshop conducted by British author and film historian Peter Cowie. Zurich Master Class participants of 2006, 2007 and 2008 will be invited to this exclusive Zurich Master Class. As part of the award ceremony, the Festival will pay tribute to Stallone’s unprecedented achievements as a legendary actor and filmmaker and will present a special retrospective on Friday, September 26, which will include installments of the “Rocky” series, as well as “Rambo” and “Cop Land”. The films will be screened for audiences at the Corso Cinema.
As an Academy Award® nominated screenwriter, director, actor and producer, Sylvester Stallone brought to life two characters that have become a part of the American cultural lexicon: Rocky Balboa and John Rambo. The then unknown Stallone wrote the script for the first Rocky picture and offered it to producers under the condition that he was to play the main character. He prevailed, and the first Rocky was realized with a budget of just under 1,1 million US dollars. In 1976 the film was released theatrically and turned out to be a surprising success – and Stallone shot to fame. “Rocky” was nominated for ten Academy Awards®, and took home Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Film Editing. Stallone has since remained one of Hollywood’s most enduring stars. With the commercially very successful sequels of Rocky (the six Rocky pictures together brought in more than 560 million dollars in the U.S. alone), Stallone established the series as an inherent part of the international film industry. In addition to his notable Rocky and Rambo series, Stallone worked as a director of Staying Alive, the sequel to Saturday Night Fever starring John Travolta.
Stallone has starred in a number of other blockbuster hits as well as in the challenging and compelling role of sheriff Freddy Heflin, protagonist of the feature film Cop Land, which garnered him international critical and audience acclaim. In his role as an overweight sheriff in a small town mainly inhabited by policemen he convinced with his acting skills alongside Robert de Niro, Harvey Keitel and Ray Liotta. Stallone most recently reprised his signature roles as Rocky Balboa and John Rambo in Rocky Balboa and Rambo in the respective big screen finales of the iconic franchises.
Filmmakers recognized for special achievement at past Zurich Film Festivals include Academy Award® winner Oliver Stone and multiple Academy Award® nominee Stephen Frears, who were both awarded the “A Tribute to” award of the Zurich Film Festival in 2006 and 2007, respectively. The honorary guest of this year’s “A Tribute to” series will be announced at the beginning of September 2008.
Press Release pdf
