John Travolta, Pamela Anderson and Isabelle Huppert Lead Torino Honorees

By Daniel Okafor

John Travolta will open the 44th Torino Film Festival on Nov. 24, joining director Roland Joffé for the international premiere of the JFK assassination drama "November 1963." The festival runs Nov. 24 – Dec. 2 in Turin and will hand out 12 career achievement awards shaped like the Stella della Mole, the 12-point sculpture atop the city's Museo Nazionale del Cinema.

Isabelle Huppert, Pamela Anderson and Josh Safdie join Travolta among the honorees. Tributes also go to Luc Besson, Fanny Ardant, Margarethe von Trotta, Stephen Frears, Mike Newell, Maria de Medeiros, Andy Garcia and Mira Sorvino. Special guests include Chiwetel Ejiofor, Abel Ferrara, Asia Argento, Albert Serra and Valeria Bruni Tedeschi, each presenting new or classic work.

"John Travolta is one of cinema's great legends," artistic director Giulio Base told Variety ahead of the lineup announcement. "For half a century, he has moved effortlessly through film history with class and elegance, but he's never seemed distant. People feel he is part of their family, their history, their lives."

Base credits Travolta with something rarer than stardom.

"Few actors can claim to have altered the very culture, but the way he walked the streets of New York at the start of 'Saturday Night Fever' changed the way people moved," Base said. "I remember how every guy tried to imitate him. That kind of influence is rare."

The director's fandom has local roots. Base recalls the "fever" around "Grease" and the near riots at its 1978 Turin premiere. "People were fighting to get in, and I was part of that mass!" Fittingly, that premiere happened at the Teatro Regio, where Travolta and the other honorees will accept their trophies on opening night. Symmetry, in festivals as in life, rarely comes this neat.

What guides the lineup?

Three editions into his five-year mandate, Base has built a clear populist streak. He encourages guests to spend time with local audiences and gravitates toward names with proven crowd appeal. Speaking with Variety, he draws a throughline between honorees Mike Newell and Stephen Frears, filmmakers who "move across worlds, eras and genres with exceptional flair" while displaying "the same extraordinary ability to win over audiences."

Safdie is the more recent case. The "Marty Supreme" director couldn't attend his film's surprise screening at last year's festival, but the evening remains a touchstone for Base — the kind of communal experience that first sparked his own cinephilia.

"The screening was crazy," Base says. "Obviously a full house, but later, outside, people stayed there for an hour talking. Young guys, students, professors, talking about the movie like in the old times. It was something really special that touched people."

An Italian journalist emailed Base calling it probably the greatest night of the festival. "I replied with a silly emoji, but later I thought he might be right!"

What is Zibaldone?

One of Base's signature initiatives is Zibaldone, a program combining restorations, tributes, special screenings and premieres. The name comes from poet Giacomo Leopardi's celebrated miscellany (a mixed notebook of writings and observations). Its eclectic spirit shows in the honorees: arthouse figures such as von Trotta, the first woman to win the Golden Lion (Venice's top prize), sit alongside crowd-pleasers like Besson, whom Base calls "a French director who has conquered the world."

The lineup also spans French icons Huppert and Ardant, plus Canadian-born Anderson, whose path from B-movies to studio comedies to contemporary auteur fare may best capture the Zibaldone spirit.

"Pamela Anderson is another dream come true for me," Base says. "Her career looks like a cocktail where somebody mixes different types of liquor and it still tastes good. She had the courage to reinvent herself, surprising those who thought they already knew her. She's an example of how to succeed and transform."

Why keep everything close together?

Base has reshaped the festival with an eye toward accessibility, streamlining both its selection and its geographical footprint. Between the opening and closing galas at the Teatro Regio, honorees will meet audiences for Q&As at two cinemas just 500 meters apart in the city center.

Both venues hold personal meaning for Base — he had his first job at one and his first kiss at the other. The compact layout also answers a practical concern.

"As a moviegoer, you have to think about when a screening finishes and when you can grab something to eat," he explains. "It's so much easier when everything is close by. Then you can watch as many movies as you want without worrying about the time."

He frames the whole curation philosophy in a single comparison. "As a programmer, I don't like festivals where there's an abundance of everything," Base says. "I think a festival is like an art gallery, where every work has its own space and can be appreciated by whoever walks through."

With two editions left in his mandate, Base's gallery opens its doors in Turin on Nov. 24 — compact, star-stacked and, by his own account, built for people who stay afterward to talk.