Venice: ’48 Hours,’ ‘Red Heat’ Director Walter Hill to Get Glory to the Filmmaker Honor

Walter HIll, the iconic director of such films as The Warriors, 48 Hours and Red Heat, will be honored for his life’s work at the 2022 Venice International Film Festival. He will receive the Cartier Glory to the Filmmaker Award.

Hill will screen his new film, the Western Dead for a Dollar, starring Christoph Waltz, Willem Dafoe, Rachel Brosnahan and Benjamin Bratt, out of competition in Venice this year. Two-time Oscar winner Waltz plays bounty hunter Max Borlund, who is deep into Mexico where he encounters professional gambler and outlaw Joe Cribbens (Dafoe), his sworn enemy, whom Max sent to prison years before. Borlund is on a mission to find and return Rachel Kidd (Brosnahan), the hostage wife of a wealthy Santa Fe businessman. When Max discovers Kidd has actually fled an abusive marriage, he has to choose between finishing the job or standing aside while ruthless mercenary outlaws and his longtime rival close in.

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The Glory to the Filmmaker honor, backed by jeweler Cartier, is dedicated to a personality “who has made a particularly original contribution to the contemporary film industry.”

In addition to his work as a director, Hill co-produced Ridley Scott’s groundbreaking science fiction horror blockbuster Alien and served as producer or executive producer on the franchise’s three sequels. He is widely acknowledged as one of the premiere action filmmakers of the 1980s, with other directing credits including Southern Comfort, Extreme Prejudice and Johnny Handsome. He had a late-career hit with the prohibition-era Western action film Last Man Standing, starring Bruce Willis, in 1996.

The award ceremony for Hill will take place Sept. 6 at Venice’s Sala Grande ahead of the Dead for a Dollar screening.

Quiver Distribution will release the film in the U.S. and Canada this fall. Myriad Pictures handled all sales for Dead for a Dollar outside of North America. Universal Pictures Content Group has picked up several international territories, including the U.K., Latin America, Scandinavia, Benelux, Japan, Australia, New Zealand and Italy. Splendid has the rights in Germany, SND in France, and A Contracorriente in Spain.

The 79th Venice International Film Festival runs Aug. 31-Sept. 10.

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