Director Joe Dante is heading to Tuscany this spring. The director of iconic films including Piranha, Gremlins, The 'Burbs, The Howling, Explorers and Innerspace will be the 2019 recipient of Lucca Film Festival’s lifetime achievement award. Dante, who started work as a trailer editor for Roger Corman’s New World Pictures, made his directorial debut in 1976 with Hollywood Boulevard, co-directed with Allan Arkush.

He has recently worked in TV, helming multiple episodes of Hawaii Five-0. Dante has several features that have been in the works, including The Man With Kaleidoscope Eyes, about the straitlaced Corman attempting to create the ultimate LSD film, with the help of Jack Nicholson, Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper. And Labirintus will follow the supernatural occurrences in an underground maze buried beneath an abandoned Soviet research facility.