Venice film fest to honor Disney creative exec Lasseter and Pixar directors for animation

Venice film fest to honor Pixar directors

ROME — The Venice Film Festival says it will give lifetime achievement awards this year to Disney’s chief creative officer and four Pixar directors for their work in animation.

Festival organizers say John Lasseter will be presented with the Golden Lion award for lifetime achievement on Sept. 6 during the annual event at Venice’s Lido.

Lasseter is a two-time Academy Award-winning director, for “Toy Story” and “Tin Toy.”

Organizers also said Sunday that the festival will feature the world premiere screenings of “Toy Story” and “Toy Story 2″ in 3-D.

The festival runs this year from Sept. 2-12.

The four Pixar Animation Studios directors who will be honored with Lasseter include Brad Bird, Pete Docter, Andrew Stanton and Lee Unkrich.

Stanton is the director of “Finding Nemo” and Unkrich directed the upcoming “Toy Story 3″ feature.