The Hollywood Film Academy will present an honorary Oscar in October to directors David Lynch and Lina Wertmüller and actors Geena Davis and Wes Studi, as announced in a statement published this Monday.
David Lynch, director of cult films such as ‘The Elephant Man’, ‘Blue Velvet’ and ‘Mulholland Drive’, will finally win an honorary Oscar at the Governors Awards ceremony, after having been nominated several times for a statuette without winning it.
Geena Davis, winner of the Oscar for best supporting actress for ‘The Accidental Tourist’ in 1988, “is a passionate activist in favor of gender equality.” She founded an institute aimed at combating inequality and stereotypes suffered by women in film and television, the Academy recalled in her statement. David also created the Bentonville Film Festival to promote greater diversity in the entertainment industry.
The star of ‘Thelma and Louise’ will receive the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award on October 27, an Oscar awarded by the Academy to reward an individual “whose humanitarian action honored the film industry.”
Wes Studi, an American of Cherokee origin, will also receive an honorary Oscar in October, a first for a Native American actor. “I feel very flattered,” tweeted the performer who acted in ‘Dances with Wolves’, ‘The Last of the Mohicans’, ‘Heat’ and ‘Avatar’.
Studi, 71, “dedicated a lot of time to politics and activism in favor of Amerindians” after enlisting in the army to fight during the Vietnam War, the Academy said.
Lina Wertmüller, 92, was the first woman to be nominated for an Oscar for “best director” for the film ‘Pasqualino’ in 1976. Famous for her satires of Italian society and customs, the filmmaker, who was Fellini’s assistant in ‘8 1/2’, he also directed films such as ‘Love and Anarchy’.