Actor and director ALAN RICKMAN will receive the 2014 Francois Truffaut Award on July 23 July at this year’s Giffoni Experience, it was announced today by the Festival’s director Claudio Gubitosi. A Golden Globe, BAFTA, Emmy and SAG award-winning actor, Rickman is perhaps best known by younger audiences worldwide as the half-blood wizard, ‘Severus Snape,’ in the hugely successful Harry Potter film franchise. The multifaceted artist is equally at ease on stage or screen. He is currently in post-production on A Little Chaos, his second feature film as director, which stars Kate Winslet and Matthias Schoenaerts.  Rickman also appears in the film and co-wrote the screenplay. Born and raised in London, England, Alan Rickman studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and worked with various British repertory and experimental theatre groups in the UK. In 1987, he earned a Tony Award nomination for his performance on Broadway as the Vicomte de Valmont, in the Royal Shakespeare Company's production of  Christopher Hampton’s Les Liaisons Dangereuses. His extensive theater credits include Private Lives(Tony nomination), John Gabriel Borkman, Hamlet, Seminar, and he directed The Winter Guest both on stage in London and as a feature film adaptation starring Emma Thompson on screen. Rickman made his feature film debut in Die Hard. His film credits, ranging from drama to comedy to musical, include Truly, Madly, Deeply, Sense and Sensibility(BAFTA nomination), Love Actually, Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, for which he won a BAFTA Award, Galaxy Quest, both Sweeney Todd and Alice in Wonderland for director Tim Burton, The Hitchhiiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, and most recently Lee Daniels’ The Butler. Rickman won an Emmy, Golden Globe and SAG Award for his performance in the title role of HBO’s Rasputin. His television credits include the BBC’s The Barchester Chronicles and HBO’s Emmy Award-winning Something the Lord Made.