AFI to honor Quentin Tarantino

This summer the American Film Institute will recognize Quentin Tarantino for his contributions to the world of cinema with an honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts degree at the Conservatory’s commencement ceremony on June 15, 2016 at the TCL Chinese Theatre in Hollywood. AFI is a highly-respected, non-profit educational arts organization with a legacy of preserving film history through a wide variety of programs and events, including the AFI Conservatory, one of the world’s top film schools, the AFI Archive, an annual awards ceremony and the truly world-class AFI Fest. And that’s only scratching the service: AFI’s influence & vitality is felt in all aspects of the filmmaking community.

AFI will confer Doctorate of Fine Arts degrees honoris causa upon Rita Moreno and Quentin Tarantino. They will be recognized for their contributions to film during the AFI Conservatory’s commencement ceremony on June 15, 2016, at the historic TCL Chinese Theatre.

One of only a handful of performers to have won all four major entertainment awards, the Emmy^®, Grammy^®, Oscar^® and Tony^®, collectively known as the coveted EGOT, actress Rita Moreno is perhaps best known for her iconic performance in WEST SIDE STORY. Spanning seven decades, her celebrated career as actress, singer, dancer and author has included widely varied roles across film, TV and stage — such as CARNAL KNOWLEDGE, JANE THE VIRGIN, THE KING AND I, THE MUPPET SHOW, HBO’s OZ and SINGIN’ IN THE RAIN. Moreno is currently working on Netflix’s ONE DAY AT TIME. She was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2004, the National Medal of Arts in 2010 and the Kennedy Center Honor in 2015.

Director, screenwriter, producer and actor, Quentin Tarantino is a bold voice in American filmmaking — one whose work is often characterized by its stylized storytelling, dark comedy, eclectic soundtracks and fluency in the vocabulary of film history. He first commanded attention with 1992’s RESERVOIR DOGS and earned a Best Screenplay Oscar^® for PULP FICTION — a film which ranks among AFI’s 100 Years…100 Movies list of the greatest American movies of all time. He has continued to gain a loyal following with his master classics like DJANGO UNCHAINED, THE HATEFUL EIGHT — the director’s bloody valentine to 70 mm cinema — INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS and KILL BILL: VOL. 1 and VOL. 2.

Moreno and Tarantino join an esteemed group of distinguished past Honorary Degree recipients, including Robert Altman, Maya Angelou, Kathryn Bigelow, Mel Brooks, Anne V. Coates, Clint Eastwood, Roger Ebert, Nora Ephron, James Earl Jones, Lawrence Kasdan, Jeffrey Katzenberg, Kathleen Kennedy, Angela Lansbury, John Lasseter, Spike Lee, David Lynch, Helen Mirren, Robert Towne, Cicely Tyson, Haskell Wexler and John Williams.