The Rome Film Fest will recognize British producer David Puttnam with its inaugural Industry lifetime achievement award, a new prize created to honor influential figures in the global film industry. The award will be presented at the festival’s opening ceremony on October 15.

Puttnam is a renowned producer whose credits include four Oscar Best Picture nominees: Midnight Express, Chariots of Fire (which won), The Killing Fields, and The Mission. His films have collectively won ten Academy Awards, ten Golden Globes, twenty-five BAFTAs, and nine Emmys. He will receive the prize from producer, director, and screenwriter Uberto Pasolini, who started his career with Puttnam as a location scout on The Killing Fields.

Born in London in 1941, Puttnam began his career in the early 1970s with films like Melody and That’ll Be the Day. He founded Enigma Productions in 1978 and collaborated with a new wave of British filmmakers who would later make a significant impact on Hollywood in the 1980s. These included directors like Alan Parker, Ridley Scott, and Adrian Lyne.

Puttnam also had a brief but notable tenure as head of Columbia Pictures from 1986 to 1987, where he prioritized low-budget films from emerging auteurs, such as Spike Lee’s School Daze, over traditional blockbusters. After his time at the studio, he returned to the U.K. to produce independent films.

In the late 1990s, Puttnam shifted his focus to politics and was elected to the House of Lords in 1997. Though he retired from Parliament in 2021, he remains active in education through Atticus Education and holds several ambassadorial and leadership roles, including positions with the Film Distributors’ Association and UNICEF UK.