Johnny Depp is returning to Italy. After the last show with his band, Hollywood Vampires (featuring Alice Cooper and Joe Perry from Aerosmith) in 2018 at the Lucca Summer Festival, the actor-musician-filmmaker will be feted with a lifetime achievement honor at the 2024 Rome Film Fest, which runs October 16 to 27.
Depp will also debut his latest directorial project at the fest: Modi – Three Days on the Wing of Madness, which chronicles the turbulent life of artist Amedeo Modigliani in 1916 Paris. Starring Riccardo Scamarcio, Al Pacino and Antonia Desplat, the film will screen in Rome following its world premiere at the San Sebastián Film Festival.
The Rome honor comes as Depp attempts to put his legal battles with ex-wife Amber Heard behind him. While his Hollywood career has yet to fully recover from the negative publicity that surrounded the divorce, he remains popular internationally and continues to be embraced by the film community in Europe. In 2023, he opened the Cannes Film Festival with Jeanne du Barry from French filmmaker Maïwenn.
Other high-profile attendees at Rome Fest’s 19th edition include Viggo Mortensen and Francis Ford Coppola, both set to receive special honors. Mortensen will be on hand to present his western The Dead Don’t Hurt starring Vicky Krieps. The film is his second feature as director, following the 2020 drama Falling, starring Lance Henriksen. Coppola will screen Megalopolis, his long-gestating epic about an ambitious architect (Adam Driver) determined to rebuild the fictional city of New Rome following a devastating disaster.