Telluride Film Festival Silver Medallion

The Silver Medallion is an award given by the Telluride Film Festival in recognition of achievements in the film industry.

History of the Silver Medallion

The first Silver Medallions were awarded in 1974 at the 1st Telluride Film Festival. They are made of pure silver and the design has never changed, featuring the emblematic "SHOW" logo on their face. The presentation of the medallion is preceded by a clip reel, full feature and/or on stage interview. Traditionally, three Silver Medallions are given out each year, with a few exceptions where numerous people from a specific category were paid the honor. Since 1995, a fourth Silver Medallions has been awarded to a hero of cinema, a filmmaker, historian, critic or organization dedicated to the celebration and preservation of film as an art.

Honorees

# 1974 - Gloria Swanson, Francis Ford Coppola, Leni Riefenstahl
# 1975 - Henry King, Werner Herzog, Jack Nicholson
# 1976 - Chuck Jones, King Kong, King Vidor
# 1977 - Michael Powell, Agnes Varda, Benjamin Carré
# 1978 - Hal Roach, Sterling Hayden, Czech New Wave (Jaromil Jires, Pavel Juráček, Jan Nemec and Ivan Passer)
# 1979 - Abel Gance, Robert Wise, Klaus Kinski
# 1980 - Robert Altman, Maurice Pialat, Karl Struss
# 1981 - The Character Actor (John Carradine, Elisha Cook, Jr., Margaret Hamilton and Woody Strode), Carlos Diegues, Dusan Makavejev
# 1982 - Joel McCrea, Pierre Braunberger, Athol Fugard
# 1983 - Luis Trenker, Andrei Tarkovsky, Richard Widmark
# 1984 - Henry Hathaway, Andrzej Wajda, Janet Leigh
# 1985 - Emilio Fernandez, Hanna Schygulla, Alexander Trauner
# 1986 - Alexander Mackendrick, Jiri Menzel, Isabelle Huppert
# 1987 - Don Siegel, Stephen Frears, Tenghiz Abuladze
# 1988 - Pedro Almodovar, Cab Calloway, The Xi'an Studio
# 1989 - Peter Greenaway, Dennis Potter, Shohei Imamura
# 1990 - Gerard Depardieu, John Berry, Clint Eastwood
# 1991 - Nature's Filmmakers (Peter Jones, Marion Zunz and Paul Atkins), Jodie Foster, Sven Nykvist
# 1992 - Elmer Bernstein, Cy Endfield, Harvey Keitel
# 1993 - Ken Loach, John Alton, Jennifer Jason Leigh
# 1994 - Judy Davis, Ken Burns, Harriet Anderson
# 1995 - John Schlesinger, Zhang Yimou, The Surrealists (Jan Švankmajer, Guy Maddin and Brothers Quay), Andrew Sarris
# 1996 - Shirley MacLaine, Mike Leigh, Alain Cavalier, Roger Meyer
# 1997 - Horton Foote, Neil Jordan, Alexander Sokurov, Milos Stehlik
# 1998 - Meryl Streep, Vittorio Storaro, Susumu Hani, Stanley Kauffmann
# 1999 - Catherine Deneuve, David Lynch, Philip Glass, ARENA
# 2000 - Ang Lee, Stellan Skarsgård, Im Kwon Taek, Serge Silberman
# 2001 - Catherine Breillat, Om Puri, Ken Russell, HBO
# 2002 - Peter O'Toole, Paul Schrader, D.A. Pennebaker, Positif
# 2003 - Peter Brook, Toni Collette, Krzysztof Zanussi, Ted Turner
# 2004 - Laura Linney, Jean-Claude Carrière, Theo Angelopoulos, Fred Roos
# 2005 - Mickey Rooney, The Dardennes, Charlotte Rampling, Criterion Collection & Janus Films
# 2006 - Walter Murch, Penélope Cruz, Rolf de Heer, David Thomson
# 2007 - Daniel Day-Lewis, Michel Legrand, Shyam Benegal, Leonard Maltin