TESTIMONEES

ROLEX AND CINEMA 2020

THE PINNACLE OF FILMMAKING – FOUR ROLEX TESTIMONEES Rolex supports those who achieve the highest level in their field, be it sport or cinema and the arts. The four Rolex Testimonees in cinema − Kathryn Bigelow, James Cameron, Alejandro G. Iñárritu and Martin Scorsese − are masters of their craft, whose films stand the test of time and who have collectively won 57 Academy Awards®.

As directors, they recognize the importance of capturing moments in time, with their works serving as an artistic interpretation of the world around us. These four filmmakers strive for excellence that is perpetual and they inspire the next generation of filmmakers to pursue ideas with the uncompromising passion that characterizes their own work.

KATHRYN BIGELOW The first and only woman to win an Academy Award® for Best Director, Kathryn Bigelow’s command of visual narrative, together with her tenacity and choice of subjects that have the ability to provoke change, have redefined the landscape of cinema today. The American director also produces and writes for many of her films.

Bigelow co-wrote and directed The Loveless (1981), her first feature film, before directing a trilogy of action movies – Blue Steel (1989), Point Break (1991) and Strange Days (1995) – with which she challenged the genre’s conventions.

Her status as a Hollywood heavyweight was confirmed with the political action thrillers The Hurt Locker (2008) and Zero Dark Thirty (2012). For The Hurt Locker, Bigelow won Academy Awards® for Best Picture and Best Director. With her most recent feature film,Detroit (2017), Bigelow directed and produced a film based on the 1967 Detroit riots, exploring race-related violence in the United States.

Her films provoke an examination of society and have established Bigelow as a true auteur.

1/4 JAMES CAMERON James Cameron is an acclaimed filmmaker and explorer. As director, writer and producer, he is responsible for some of the most memorable films of recent decades: The Terminator (1984), Aliens (1986), The Abyss (1989), Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991), True Lies (1994), Titanic (1997) and Avatar (2009).

Cameron’s films have blazed a trail for their artistic realization and advanced visual effects, setting numerous performance records in the United States and internationally. Titanic held the record for the highest grossing film for 12 years, only surpassed by Avatar, which maintained that record for another decade. His films have also earned numerous nominations and awards. Most notably,Titanic received 14 Academy Award® nominations and won 11 Oscars®, both records, including Cameron’s three Oscars® for Best Picture, Best Director and Best Editing. The Award-winning Canadian filmmaker delights in precision; attention to detail in films, he believes, helps to transport viewers into the world a movie presents.

Cameron has worn a Rolex for several decades. The brand’s watches appear organically in his films, including inTitanic , for which he gave the late actor Bill Paxton a Rolex Submariner to wear during filming.

ALEJANDRO G. IÑÁRRITU The winner of two consecutive Oscars® for Best Director (Birdman in 2015, The Revenant in 2016), Alejandro G. Iñárritu is known for his exploration of the human condition, coupled with his visual style, which have established him as a force to be reckoned with. His debut feature film, the dramaAmores Perros (2000), was nominated for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar®, and his two Best Director Oscars® have earned the Mexican filmmaker a place in movie history next to Hollywood legends John Ford and Joseph L. Mankiewicz.

Among his recent work, CARNE y ARENA (Virtually Present, Physically Invisible), is a conceptual virtual reality installation based on true accounts that allows the viewer to experience fragments of the personal journeys undertaken by refugees. First presented at the 2017 Cannes Film Festival, it received a special Award Oscar® at the 9th Annual Governors Awards, Iñárritu’s fifth Academy Award®. The Academy stated they were presenting the award to recognize a “visionary and powerful experience in storytelling”.

For Iñárritu, a work of art becomes perpetual through the way that people perceive it.

Alejandro G. Iñárritu mentored young Israeli filmmaker Tom Shoval in the Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative in 2014−2015.

2/4 MARTIN SCORSESE Martin Scorsese is a towering figure in the history of cinema, a director, producer and screenwriter whose career spans more than 50 years and an extensive body of work that includes some of the greatest films ever made. His lifelong passion for the cinema has helped raise our own awareness of the crucial need to preserve our cherished films. Scorsese grew up in New York’s Little Italy and made his first films in the late 1960s. He redefined our ideas of what was possible in movies with such classics as Mean Streets (1973), Taxi Driver (1976) and Raging Bull (1980). Scorsese’s unique combination of artistry, charisma and generosity continue to inspire filmmakers and audiences all over the world. Details play a crucial role in telling a story on screen and in many of his most iconic films, Scorsese has chosen to feature Rolex watches, with a preference for the Oyster Perpetual Day-Date.

Martin Scorsese has had a profound effect on the art form that became his vocation at an early age.

In 2008−2009, in the Rolex Arts Initiative, Martin Scorsese mentored the up-and- coming Argentinian filmmaker Celina Murga.

INSPIRING THROUGH THE TRANSMISSION OF KNOWLEDGE AND SKILLS Rolex’s four film Testimonees personify excellence in their craft and are committed to passing on their knowledge and wisdom to young filmmakers.

They know the importance of transmission since they have also been mentored and inspired by others, which helped them reach the pinnacle of filmmaking.

In a Rolex film broadcasted during the Oscars® ceremony in February 2020, the four Testimonees revealed how they were guided and inspired by filmmakers and others, helping them to break boundaries and strive for artistic greatness. Each one similarly acknowledges that conveying their wisdom to the filmmakers of tomorrow helps ensure the continuity of expertise and the highest standards.

The following is a selection of their inspiring words:

Bigelow: “If you think about those people that have really shaped you, they never leave you. You can never unlearn what you learn, you can never unknow what you know.” She tells emerging filmmakers to “strive, to not compromise, ever”.

Cameron: “We build on the shoulders of the people who came before us. We see the example, it excites us and we say ‘I want to do that, or my version of that’. Then we have to pass on what we know to a new generation.”

3/4 Iñárritu describes a mentor as “someone who helps you see something within yourself, something that you had not seen and who gives you the confidence to carry it out. I would like to be there for someone else, in much the same way as [my mentors] were there for me.”

Scorsese credits one of his university lecturers in New York with setting him on the path to greatness: “He set a fire in our hearts... If you were crazy enough to think you have got to make a movie, he was the one who inspired you.”

To find out more about Rolex and Cinema, go to rolex.org/arts/cinema.

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