DAVID LYNCH WILL RECEIVE LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD

Wednesday August 29th, 2012

Frank Booth, Sailor Ripley, John Merrick, Alvin Straight, Betty Elms, Special Agent Dale Cooper - they are but a few unique characters living among David Lynch's cinematic realms of imagination. It doesn't matter whether they fill the viewers with disgust with their psychopathic attributes, elicit excitement with their bravado and daring towards life and love, or make them cry through overdue journeys to forgiveness - they're all extremely fascinating. The inimitable worlds created within the films of the American director, which are based on the real world, let the audiences immerse themselves in a mixture of reality and fiction, dreams and nightmares, imagination and perversion. In the cinema made by David Lynch nothing is what it seems, and for over four decades he has invited all who dare to enter his world. We are very proud to announce that during the 20th edition of the International Film Festival of the Art of Cinematography PLUS CAMERIMAGEDavid Lynch will be honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award for Directing. He will also meet with the festival participants after the screenings of selected films.

David Lynch on the set of "The Straight Story"; David Lynch archives
David Lynch is a true maverick of the film industry, a filmmaker who doesn't agree to any kind of artistic compromises, a director who has shown the whole world that films don't have to be rational or explainable to bewitch one's senses, cast a spell over one's heart, and stimulate one's mind. Lynch weaves his films according to dream logic, complementing it with intellectual riddles, eerie atmosphere, and the omnipresent mysteriousness. He demonstrates that it is possible to do a profound cross examination of the human soul by analyzing the subconscious, dreams, phobias, and visualizing the characters' mental state.

He was interested in original projects since his very youth. He first started to study painting, and then, after receiving a grant from the American Film Institute, he truly began a career in films. Although he had repeatedly stated that among his inspirations were Buñuel, Herzog, Kubrick, and Polanski, his personal vision was always the most important.

The cult classic Eraserhead, Lynch's feature debut, garnered praise for him as the great experimenter. With his next films - the heart-breaking The Elephant Man, the ahead-of-its-time Dune, and the hauntingly beautiful Blue Velvet - he proved that his films cannot be easily described with pre-existing definitions. He was never interested in genre cinema, rather in the way the noble conventions of the American cinema could complement his visions. While having that in mind, it is possible that it is Blue Velvet which might describe Lynch's way of cinema to the fullest - a unique style interweaving surrealism with dark comedy, the grotesque with the serious, romantic ideas with psychological ugliness. The tale of a young man discovering the filthy, obscure and hypocritical side of reality, and also the dark side of the human soul, is essentially a collection of peculiar rules according to which Lynch created - in different configuration - his previous and subsequent films.

Still from "Mulholland Dr."
In Wild at Heart he did it through a peculiar romance and by taking advantage of the richness of the road movie genre. With the wonderfully surrealistic and mysterious Twin Peaks he changed the face of modern television. And then he created the same atmosphere in movie theatres in Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me. His Lost Highway stunned viewers, giving many of them fantastic material to analyze for years to come. He surprised his fans with The Straight Story, a masterpiece in which surrealism was replaced by simplicity and profound faith in the human condition. In Mulholland Dr. he played with the rules governing the classic film noir genre, while at the same time honoring one of his most beloved movies of all time - Billy Wilder's Sunset Blvd.. Finally, with Inland Empire, his last feature project to date, part of which had been shot in Lodz, he made his way into the digital era of cinema. In his films he showed both familiar small-town America, and big, gloriously anonymous City of Angels. He gazed behind the curtains of the film industry, emphasized the value of simplicity in human relationships, and created a new cinematic language.

For David Lynch ideas and thoughts have always been the most important. It is because of them that an individual is such a unique creature. He never had the urge to expose or openly criticize, he rather suggested in his films the need to be more aware of one's self and the world around. By showing the viewers that inside each of us there's a beast waiting to be awoken, he tried to encourage self-analysis. By forming his masterpieces through irrational tales of people lost in fighting for their right to be free, he showed that reality is an illusion perceived differently by everyone. The same can be said of his films, which are subjected to countless interpretations.

Justin Theroux, Marek Zydowicz and David Lynch, Camerimage 2006, photo by Krzysztof Kubiak
David Lynch hasn't changed by being nominated for prestigious awards (three-time Oscar nominee in Best Director category) or by receiving them (Cannes‘ Palme d'Or). He rejected directing Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi, because he thought he'd be realizing someone else's vision. He didn't agree to direct Fast Times at Ridgemont High, because he didn't feel the right attitude towards the script. Throughout his career he did classic music videos (Chris Isaak's Wicked Game), and famous commercials (for Dior with Marion Cotillard). He was one of the first to see the possibilities of the new medium of Internet (Dumbland and Rabbits). He produced the films of other original filmmakers (Crumb by Terry Zwigoff). He's a visual artist and a painter, he also records music - his most recent project is his solo debut album Crazy Clown Time, and in the past he had his own comic strip. He is a living legend who paved his way into the pantheon of cinema, a filmmaker who never compromised his own artistic credo. And he is a dear friend of Plus Camerimage which he visited several times. We're more than happy that we'll meet David Lynch again, this time presenting him with the Lifetime Achievement Award for Directing.

Selected filmography: