SWEENEY TODD director Tim Burton to receive Golden Lion at Venice Film Festival!

Great news! Visionary director Tim Burton will be honored by the Venice Film Festival with the Golden Lion award for lifetime achievement. Yes, September 5, 2007 will be “Tim Burton Day” at the Venice festival (and of course on the Zone as well–how could we resist?). Nick Vivarelli of Variety reports that the director and his work “will be celebrated [. . .] at the Palazzo del Cinema with several special events that may include a sneak peak at his SWEENEY TODD adaptation, now in production.”

“Tim Burton is a cinematic genius, the most imaginative child of the new age of cinema,” says Venice Film Festival director Marco Muller. “He has a unique talent of being able to imbue his fantasies with emotional depth. He can build the most visionary dreamscapes (that reach to the eternal child within us), without ever forgetting his sense of aesthetic integrity and his natural sympathy for the alienated outsider.” All true . . . and we also admire his impeccable ability to match actors and roles. Tim passed over stars with cinematic clout to cast Johnny Depp in EDWARD SCISSORHANDS; their work since then has included ED WOOD, SLEEPY HOLLOW, CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY, CORPSE BRIDE, and now SWEENEY TODD.

The Zone thanks FANtasticJD and emma for breaking the news; you can read the Variety article and other publicity releases on the Zone’s News & Views forum. Congratulations to Tim on this well-deserved honor! –Part-Time Poet