Offbeat Filmmaker Harmony Korine Slated to Receive Lifetime Achievement Award at Locarno

Harmony Korine Slated to Get Honor from Locarno Film Festival

Director Harmony Korine is going to be getting honored with the Pardo d’onore Manor award at the 76th Locarno Film Festival on August 11th.

When Harmony Korine’s screenplay for Kids turned into one of the most disturbing (and best) films of 1995, independent film audiences were wowed beyond belief. In 2013, Korine’s movie, Spring Breakers, was one of the most frustratingly intriguing movies of the year. Now, with many other projects under his belt, the acclaimed director is set to receive the Pardo d’onore Manor award for lifetime achievement at the Locarno Film Festival late this summer.

In the 2019 movie, The Beach Bum, Korine worked with some of the biggest Hollywood stars of the day. Matthew McConaughey, Isla Fisher, Zac Efron and Jonah Hill were among them. Though that film earned just $3 million domestically (Spring Breakers made four times as much), it has since won many new fans throughout recent years. Still, Spring Breakers was a much more successful film with critics overall.

Gummo and Spring Breakers will show at the Locarno Film Festival as examples chosen by the director of some of his best work. Korine is also a book author and a music video director (his big first video starred Macaulay Culkin).

Spring Breakers was noteworthy for having three big stars, two of whom gave some of the most unique work of their careers thus far. Selena Gomez was only in half the movie but managed to give her role everything she had resulting in one of the most-talked about parts of her distinct body of work. It was James Franco, however, playing the criminal “Alien” who turned in the most radically different and best performance of his career. As the Scarface-loving bad guy who takes the four female lead characters under his wing, Franco completely disappeared into the role and the result was a villain audiences loved to hate. Vanessa Hudgens was also in the movie.

Kids was a “wake-up call to the world” about the realities of unprotected sex in the era of HIV and earned a great $7 million as a summer indie film in 1995. The movie really proved Korine was a force to contend with. Larry Clark directed the film from Korine’s intense script. Gummo was an unusual film from 1997 that marked Korine’s most offbeat film to date. Set in an Ohio town, it proved too bizarre for mainstream audiences grossing just $116,000 at the box-office.

Harmony Korine is a visionary filmmaker with ideas that may seem strange on the surface but make for remarkably intriguing films nevertheless. It is a great distinction to receive this award from the Locarno Film Festival and it is a well-deserved accomplishment for Korine.

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