Director and Screenwriter, 1946, U.S.A. Paul Schrader began his career as a film critic and screenwriter, writing the iconic screenplay for Taxi Driver, by Martin Scorsese, in 1976. Two years later he directed his first feature, Blue Collar, and in the decades that followed he would cement himself as a bold and visionary filmmaker, directing a series of profoundly original films that rejected the humanist notions of American cinematic heroes. At the heart of his films there are lonely figures in constant struggle and, even when he approaches iconic and historical personalities, as in Mishima: Life in Four Characters (Best Artistic Contribution award at the Cannes Film Festival in 1985) or Patty Hearst (1988), Schrader’s protagonists reach a depth of character rare in American cinema, shaped by a realism that studies the profound fissures in the often elaborate masks behind which they hide. First Reformed, his most recent film, premiered in the Official Competition of the Venice Film Festival 2017, and it has been acclaimed by the public and the critic as one of the best of his career.
Paul Schrader will attend the festival and LEFFEST will pay tribute to his career through a retrospective of his work as a director.