John Turturro to Receive the Golden Eye Award 

John Turturro has enjoyed a career spanning more than four decades, working across an extraordinary range of genres and collaborating with some of cinema’s most acclaimed filmmakers, including Spike Lee, Joel and Ethan Coen, Martin Scorsese, Robert Redford, Robert De Niro, Nanni Moretti and Pedro Almodóvar. He first gained international recognition through his collaborations with Spike Lee, appearing in DO THE RIGHT THING and JUNGLE FEVER, and went on to establish himself as one of the most distinctive actors of his generation through a series of acclaimed performances.

Turturro has been a frequent collaborator with Joel and Ethan Coen, appearing in MILLER’S CROSSING, BARTON FINK, O BROTHER, WHERE ART THOU? and THE BIG LEBOWSKI, in which he created the iconic character Jesus Quintana. For his lead performance in BARTON FINK, he won the Best Actor Award at the 1991 Cannes Film Festival and the David di Donatello Award. His wide-ranging filmography also includes Francesco Rosi’s THE TRUCE, Robert Redford’s QUIZ SHOW, Martin Scorsese’s THE COLOR OF MONEY and Robert De Niro’s THE GOOD SHEPHERD, as well as Pedro Almodóvar’s THE ROOM NEXT DOOR and Matt Reeves’ THE BATMAN. He later reprised the role of Quintana in THE JESUS ROLLS, which he wrote, directed and starred in. He has also brought his singular comic presence to films including Adam Sandler’s MR. DEEDS and ANGER MANAGEMENT and Michael Bay’s TRANSFORMERS films, in which he played the eccentric Agent Simmons.

Turturro received the Camera D’Or Award at the Cannes Film Festival for MAC, his directorial debut. His other films as writer and director include ILLUMINATA, ROMANCE & CIGARETTES, PASSIONE, and FADING GIGOLO.

On television, Turturro won an Emmy Award for his guest appearance on MONK and received additional Emmy, Golden Globe and SAG Award nominations for his acclaimed performance as criminal attorney John Stone in HBO’s THE NIGHT OF. His television credits also include HBO’s THE PLOT AGAINST AMERICA, Apple TV+’s MR. & MRS. SMITH and SEVERANCE, for which he received Primetime Emmy nominations for both seasons.

In THE ONLY LIVING PICKPOCKET IN NEW YORK, Turturro stars as Harry, a seasoned pickpocket whose carefully controlled life is thrown into turmoil when a job goes wrong, setting off a tense chain of events that unfolds over the course of 36 hours. Set against the streets of New York, the film combines the momentum and suspense of a crime thriller with a character-driven story about a man confronting the choices that have shaped his life. As Harry races against the clock, Turturro brings both grit and humanity to a character caught in an increasingly dangerous situation.

«John Turturro is an iconic actor who made himself unforgettable with films like BARTON FINK and THE BIG LEBOWSKI – his characters leave a lasting, memorable impression», says Christian Jungen, CEO of the Zurich Film Festival. «In THE ONLY LIVING PICKPOCKET IN NEW YORK, he carries the film from the very first minute to the very last, while also turning it into a deeply personal love letter to his hometown. Even though he portrays the antihero, we find ourselves rooting for him right until the end. That’s exactly what John Turturro is characterized by: he creates characters that are exaggerated for the screen yet feel completely true to life at the same time. With the Golden Eye Award, we honor an actor who has left his unmistakable signature on cinema for decades.» 

«I am grateful to the Zurich Film Festival for this honor. I was immediately drawn to Noah’s script and to the world he created in THE ONLY LIVING PICKPOCKET IN NEW YORK. There’s a sense of tension as the clock works against Harry, balanced by a finely drawn character-driven story set in a particular time and place in New York. As a lifelong New Yorker, the world felt rich and evocative, and there was a delicacy about it that felt almost radical about the story Noah was telling», says Turturro.

You can find the official media release here.