#‘Gladiator,’ ‘Black Hawk Down’ Editor Pietro Scalia to Receive Locarno’s Vision Award

Pietro Scalia, the two-time Oscar-winning film editor, known for his work with Ridley Scott (Gladiator, The Martin, Black Hawk Down), Oliver Stone (JFK) and Gus Van Sant (Good Will Hunting), among others, will receive the Locarno international film festival’s 2023 Vision Award Ticinomoda. The prize, a lifetime achievement honor, is dedicated to creatives whose work “has extended the horizons of the cinematic image.”

Scalia will receive the award in Locarno on Aug. 3 at a ceremony at the festival’s legendary Piazza Grande. Locarno will also screen two standout films from Scalia’s career: Good Will Hunting (1997) and Black Hawk Down (2001).

Locarno artistic director Giona A. Nazzaro said the Italian-American Scalia was “in the tradition of the great film editors of Hollywood who shaped the image of classic cinema and its subsequent transformations. [He] has revolutionized our way of thinking about how each image is joined to the next. In his collaborations with Bernardo Bertolucci, Ridley Scott, Sam Raimi, Michael Bay and Gus Van Sant (among many, many others), Scalia has proved able to both adhere to and reinvent the poetics and formal research of these auteurs. Scalia’s editing work has influenced whole generations of young filmmakers, he brought in a decisive new gaze in determining the rhythmic intervals and timing required for linking images to each other. Pietro Scalia: an experimental genius of the gaze and the musicality of editing.”

Scalia won film editing Oscars for JFK in 1992 and Black Hawk Down in 2002 and was nominated for Good Will Hunting in 1998 and Gladiator in 2001. His work will next be seen in Ferarri, Michael Mann’s hotly-anticipated drama about the legendary Italian carmaker, which stars Adam Driver, Shailene Woodley and Penélope Cruz.

The 76th Locarno international film festival runs Aug. 2-12.