A trio of directing legends will share the stage at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood Saturday evening, with Steven Spielberg and George Lucas set to present Francis Ford Coppola with the 50th American Film Institute Life Achievement Award.
The AFI Award is billed as the nation’s highest honor for a career in film.
“There is only one Francis Ford Coppola,” Bob Gazzale, AFI president and CEO, said in a statement announcing Spielberg and Lucas as presenters of the award. “And it is AFI’s honor to gather the art and entertainment communities, along with his family, friends and colleagues to celebrate cinema — all of it — and the very best of it.”
The AFI gala will be a star-studded affair. Among the Hollywood luminaries expected to attend will be a pair of Coppola’s stars from “The Godfather” films, Al Pacino and Robert De Niro. Also on the guest list are Harrison Ford, Morgan Freeman, Dustin Hoffman, Adam Driver, Ron Howard, C. Thomas Howell, Diane Lane, Spike Lee and Ralph Macchio.
The event will be recorded and broadcast at a later date on TNT and TCM.
Coppola was announced last year as the 50th AFI Life Achievement Award honoree.
“Francis Ford Coppola is a peerless artist — one who has created seminal works in the canon of American film, and has also inspired generations of filmmakers who now embody his artistry and his independent spirit,” Kathleen Kennedy, chair of the AFI Board of Trustees, said in a statement last year.
Coppola directed three films listed on AFI’s “100 Years … 100 Movies” list — “The Godfather,” “The Godfather Part II” and “Apocalypse Now.” His other directing credits include “Bram Stoker’s Dracula,” “Peggy Sue Got Married,” “The Conversation,” “Finians Rainbow” and the Michael Jackson 3-D music video short “Captain EO.” His long-awaited epic “Megalopolis” was released last year.
Outside of the director’s chair, his producing credits include films such as “American Graffiti,” “The Black Stallion,” “Sleepy Hollow,” “Kinsey” and “Lost in Translation.”
According to AFI, Coppola’s work alongside George Lucas at their American Zoetrope production company helped launch and further the careers of luminaries such as Pacino, De Niro, Ford, Lane, James Caan, Richard Dreyfus, Diane Keaton, Robert Duvall and Matt Dillon.
The AFI Life Achievement Award is presented to a person “whose talent has in a fundamental way advanced the film art; whose accomplishment has been acknowledged by scholars, critics, professional peers and the general public; and whose work has stood the test of time.”
Nicole Kidman received the honor last year. Other previous recipients include Julie Andrews, Denzel Washington, Mel Brooks, Morgan Freeman, Michael Douglas, Tom Hanks, Elizabeth Taylor, Sidney Poitier, Kirk Douglas, John Ford, Bette Davis, Alfred Hitchcock, James Stewart, Lillian Gish, Meryl Streep and Jane Fonda.