Salma Hayek is set to receive an award for her work on and off the screen. The Oscar-nominated actress will be honored with the Franca Sozzani Award at Venice International Film Festival, WWD confirms.
Established by late Vogue Italia editor in chief Franca Sozzani’s family, the award recognizes women for their artistic careers and social commitment.
“[Franca’s] example and her teaching live on in a countless number of little everyday actions, which still punctuate life in the firm today,” said Fedele Usai, chief executive officer of Condé Nast Italia, which supports the Franca Sozzani Award. “This tribute to Franca is an opportunity to celebrate a person who was unique and unrepeatable, and who is a constant and challenging benchmark for all of us at Condé Nast.”
Hayek is the second recipient of the award. Julianne Moore was the first.
In 2003 Hayek received an Oscar nod for “Frida.” She also produced the biopic of the late Mexican artist. “Beatriz at Dinner,” “Septembers of Shiraz,” and “Tale of Tales” are among her recent acting credits.
Off-screen, Hayek is known for her activism raising awareness about violence against women and women’s rights. In December she came forward with her own #MeToo Harvey Weinstein story. “[W]hy do so many of us, as female artists, have to go to war to tell our stories when we have so much to offer?” she wrote in The New York Times. “Why do we have to fight tooth and nail to maintain our dignity?” She observed, “I think it is because we, as women, have been devalued artistically to an indecent state, to the point where the film industry stopped making an effort to find out what female audiences wanted to see and what stories we wanted to tell.”
Hayek will accept the Franca Sozzani Award August 21 in Venice. Only one woman-directed film is screening in Competition at the fest, Jennifer Kent’s “The Nightingale,” a revenge story set in 19th-century Tasmania.
