At the Rome Film Fest, career achievement awards go to Javier Bardem and Julianne Moore

The 21st Rome Film Fest, scheduled from October 13 to 25 at the Auditorium Parco della Musica Ennio Morricone, is handing out its career achievement awards these days. The news comes from sources all traceable to the festival’s official statements, and should therefore be considered as a single informational source, albeit reported across multiple outlets that have picked it up.

On October 17, Javier Bardem received the Career Achievement Award, presented by Paolo Sorrentino. On the same day, the Spanish actor presented the film “El ser querido” by Rodrigo Sorogoyen. On October 21, it will be Julianne Moore’s turn to receive the same honor, this time from Jesse Eisenberg, on the occasion of the screening of the musical comedy “The Debut,” directed by Eisenberg himself and also starring Paul Giamatti.

The festival also reserved recognition for work behind the camera: British producer Tessa Ross received the Industry Career Achievement Award during the opening night on October 13, presented by director Edward Berger. A fourth award, the Progressive Career Achievement Award, went on October 19 to actor Anthony Ippolito, ahead of the screening of “I Play Rocky” by Peter Farrelly.

The choice to entrust the presentation of the awards to figures from contemporary cinema — Sorrentino for Bardem, Eisenberg for Moore, Berger for Ross — symbolically links each award to a name who has worked or works in the same artistic fields as the honorees, rather than entrusting the presentations to purely institutional figures of the festival.

The official image of the 2026 edition of the festival is dedicated to Monica Vitti, a choice that places the festival in explicit relation to the history of Italian cinema in the very year in which career achievement awards go predominantly to international performers and professionals.

With the screening of “The Debut” on October 21 and the presentation of the award to Julianne Moore, the festival enters its central phase, four days before the closing scheduled for October 25.