Wes Anderson will receive the Cartier Glory to the Filmmaker Award at the 2023 Venice Film Festival.

The organisers of the Italian film extravaganza announced on Monday that The Grand Budapest Hotel writer and director would be presented with the honour, which is given to “a personality who has made a particularly original contribution to the contemporary film industry”.

Anderson will receive the award on 1 September in the Palazzo del Cinema before the screening of his latest movie, The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar.

“Wes Anderson is one of the few directors whose unique and unmistakable style can be recognized with just one frame,” said Alberto Barbera, the director of the Venice Film Festival. “His formal universe harks back to a childlike and visionary aesthetic, dominated by pastel colors and obsessive care in preparing strictly symmetrical sequences populated by misfit dreamers who are incurably romantic and cheerful.

“From the memorable and poignant soundtracks (often inspired by the 1960s) to the extravagant costumes that reflect the characters’ psyche, each detail and the composition of every single shot is painstakingly conceived and masterfully carried out. The worlds the director creates are plausible and yet completely imaginary and fictitious, buttressed by surreal humor and a disconcerting taste for the vicissitudes of maladjusted families, absent fathers, and imperturbable mothers. Eccentric and highly idiomatic cinema that is always perfectly entertaining and enjoyable.”

The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar, starring Ralph Fiennes, Benedict Cumberbatch, Dev Patel, and Ben Kingsley, will premiere Out of Competition at the festival before debuting on Netflix in October. The 40-minute movie has been described as an “extremely faithful” adaptation of Roald Dahl’s short story, about a guru who can see without using his eyes.

The 80th Venice Film Festival runs from 30 August to 9 September.

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