Malcolm McDowell at Lucca Film Festival 2025

Great anticipation surrounds the appearance of Malcolm McDowell at the Lucca Film Festival, where he will be a guest of the 21st edition on September 24. The festival, directed by Nicola Borrelli and supported by the Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Lucca, will take place in the Tuscan city from September 20 to 28, 2025, with free admission until capacity is reached. The English actor, who in 1971 embodied the iconic character Alex in Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange, will receive the Lifetime Achievement Award on Wednesday, September 24, on the stage of Cinema Astra, and present the version reconstructed by Thomas Negovan from Gore Vidal’s screenplay, Caligula: The Ultimate Cut, accompanied by international artist Hershey Felder, in collaboration with FirenzeOnStage. The film, presented in its original version with Italian subtitles, tells the story of the rise to power of young Caligula (Malcolm McDowell) after the assassination of Tiberius (Peter O’Toole), and how he drags the Roman Empire into a spiral of violence, lust, and madness. Released in 1980, Caligula became notorious for its troubled production and the scandal it stirred at the time: artistic disputes and delays produced a hybrid film, both decadent and controversial. More than forty years later, Thomas Negovan presents a new version, The Ultimate Cut: a completely reconstructed work, created without using a single frame from the original film, which restores the strength of the actors (including a stunning Helen Mirren as the Emperor’s wife) and offers a new perspective on the Emperor’s madness.

Malcolm McDowell, who before becoming the star of the cult classic A Clockwork Orange had already acted in films such as If… directed by Lindsay Anderson (1968) and Figures in a Landscape directed by Joseph Losey (1970), has, over his long career, also worked with directors of the caliber of Blake Edwards, Robert Altman, Hugh Hudson, Rob Zombie, Michel Hazanavicius, and Jay Roach. He has also appeared in Italian films such as Mortacci directed by Sergio Citti (1989), Maggio musicale directed by Ugo Gregoretti (1989), and Between Strangers directed by Edoardo Ponti (2002). Nominated for a Golden Globe in 1972 as Best Actor in a Drama for A Clockwork Orange, in 2005 he won a European Silver Ribbon for the film Evilenko, directed by David Grieco. On March 16, 2012, he was also awarded a star at 6714 Hollywood Boulevard on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, in the Motion Pictures category.

A Lifetime Achievement Award is accompanied by recognition for a rising star: the Lucca Film Festival announces that on the evening of Saturday, September 27, at Cinema Astra, the New Protagonists Award will be presented to the actor from Lucca, Alberto Paradossi. Born in 1989, Paradossi trained at the acting school of the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia, beginning his career in theater, performing in plays by authors such as Theresa Rebeck and Neil LaBute. After moving into cinema with supporting roles in films such as Il nostro ultimo and The Girl in the Fog, in 2020 he appeared in Gianni Amelio’s Hammamet, in which he played the son of President Craxi. That same year he also starred in the television film Permette? Alberto Sordi, portraying Federico Fellini. Since 2022 he has been part of the cast of the TV series Studio Battaglia, and between 2022 and 2023 he appeared in the miniseries The Net – Power Game, directed by Volfango De Biasi and Lorenzo Sportiello. In 2024 he starred in Zamora, the directorial debut of Neri Marcorè, based on the novel of the same name by Roberto Perrone.