Italian actress Serena Rossi will receive the Campari Passion for Film Award at the 83rd Venice International Film Festival, which runs 2–12 September, festival organisers announced on 4 August (The Hollywood Reporter).

The award, presented in collaboration with the Venice festival's artistic direction, recognises film professionals for their contribution to cinema and their creative work. Past recipients span the craft: editor Bob Murawski, cinematographer Luca Bigazzi, composer Terence Blanchard, production designers Marcus Rowland, Tonino Zera and Paola Comencini, costume designer Arianne Phillips, and director Gus Van Sant.

Venice artistic director Alberto Barbera praised Rossi for building a career that crosses film, television, music and voice acting. That breadth is unusual even by Italian standards, where performers often move between mediums more fluidly than in Hollywood.

Rossi rose to prominence on Italian television with roles in the long-running series Il Commissario Montalbano and the biographical drama Adriano Olivetti. She expanded into film with credits including Song 'e Napule, Ammore e malavita, Lasciami andare and Io sono Mia, in which she portrayed the singer Mia Martini. More recently she starred in the Rai series Mina Settembre, Netflix's The Children's Train and Non abbiamo bisogno di parole, and Disney's Uonderbois.

She is no stranger to the Venice Lido itself. Rossi hosted the opening and closing ceremonies of the 78th Venice Film Festival in 2021.

At this year's edition she will also appear on screen in Scherzetto (Trick), directed by Mario Martone. The film pairs Rossi with Toni Servillo, Lorenzo Perrotta, Leonardo Lidi, Giovanni Ludeno and Gianluca Di Gennaro (The Hollywood Reporter).

For audiences outside Italy, the award offers a signal of whose work the Venice selection committee wants the world to notice. Rossi's name sits alongside a roster of below-the-line and above-the-line talent the festival has singled out since the Campari partnership began — a list that reads less like a popularity contest than a roll call of the people who build films frame by frame.