The PIDS Enghien is an event dedicated to digital creation in all its forms: from visual effects to virtual reality, through animation and 3D, the PIDS crosses the creative, technical, economic and creative challenges of a sector in perpetual evolution.
The organizers created the Digital Creation GENIE Awards in 2015, which aim to honor the talents of French digital creation.
Michael Pangrazio will receive the
2025 GENIE Lifetime Achievement Award
On the occasion of PIDS ENGHIEN (January 22-25, 2025), the Arts Centre and the town of Enghien-les-Bains are delighted to announce that Artistic Director Michael Pangrazioregular collaborator with Steven Spielberg (4 films) and Peter Jackson (3 films), will receive a Genie d’Honneur on Wednesday January 22, 2025 at the next GENIE Awards ceremony, and will give an exceptional masterclass on Friday January 24, 2025 at the Centre des arts d’Enghien-les-Bains.
GENIE Visionary Award 2025
The GENIE Visionary Award rewards a personality of the digital creation industry for significant and lasting contributions to the art and science by way of vision, artistry, invention and innovation.
Michael Pangrazio is an American art director in the feature film industry, best known for his matte painting work on classic feature films as “Star Wars V : The Empire Strikes Back”, “Raiders of the Lost Ark”, “E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial” or “King Kong”. During his career, Michael Pangrazio collaborated with major filmmakers such as Steven Spielberg, Peter Jackson, Ron Howard, Tim Burton…
After graduating high school, Pangrazio began his career as a scenic artist for a television network. In 1978, he met Joe Johnston from Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) who helped him to get a job in this studio. With no prior experience, Pangrazio learned the art of matte painting under the guidance of renowned conceptual artist Ralph McQuarrie over the next three years.
Pangrazio contributed to several iconic films, notably painting the backdrops for most of the stop-motion shots in the Imperial Walker/Hoth sequence of “The Empire Strikes Back” (1980). His work on the final shot of the government warehouse in “Raiders of the Lost Ark” (1981), which involved combining a glass painting with live-action footage, is celebrated as one of the greatest achievements in matte painting in filmmaking history. He also created the matte paintings for the Pankot Palace, Cliff, and Village in “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom” (1984), as well as many scenes in “Young Sherlock Holmes” (1985).
In 1988, after leaving ILM, Pangrazio co-founded Matte World Digital with Craig Barron, where they continued to collaborate with ILM on notable matte-painting scenes for various classic films. In 1994, he moved to Oregon to focus on a career in children’s book illustration, contributing artwork to numerous publications.
In 2005, Pangrazio returned to the film industry as Art Director at Weta Digital in New Zealand. Since then, he has supervised as visual effects art Director for major blockbusters such as King Kong (2005) the lovely bones (2009) “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey” (2012) and “Bridge to Terabithia” (2007).
Former GENIE Visionary / Lifetime achievement Awards:
2015 : Neil Corbould
2016 : Dennis Muren, Rodolphe Chabrier, Jacques Bled
2017 : Joe Letteri, Pierre Buffin
2018 : Phil Tippett, Christian Guillon
2019: John Knoll, Eve Ramboz
2020: Chris Edwards, Olivier Emery
2022: Rob Legato, Jerzy Kular, Xavier Nicolas
2023: Doug Chiang, Alain Carsoux
2024: Guillaume Rocheron