Prague, Feb 2 (CTK) – Italian director, scriptwriter and actor Marco Bellocchio, 76, and Slovak actress Emilia Vasaryova, 73, will be awarded at the opening of the 23rd Febiofest international film festival in Prague on March 17, its organisers told reporters on Tuesday.
The festival will be held in the Czech capital until March 25. Afterwards, a part of its programme will be presented in 14 Czech towns within the Echoes of Febiofest from March 29 to April 21.
British script writer and playwright Peter Morgan, who is well known for writing historical drama films Frost/Nixon (2008), The Queen (2006) and The Deal (2003), will also receive the festival’s Kristian award for the contribution to world cinematography, the organisers announced in mid-January.
“The opening ceremony will be connected with the screening of the romance film Carol, featuring Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara as a couple of women fatally in love in New York of the 1950s, which was nominated for Oscar in six categories,” festival president Fero Fenic said.
The screenings for the public will start in the festival’s main venue, the CineStar Andel multiplex, on the same evening.
Bellocchio ranks among the most significant Italian film-makers, along with Bernardo Bertolucci and Pier Paolo Pasolini.
He has shot various genres from political dramas and satires focused on the Catholic Church to the adaptations of literary classics, such as Henry IV (1984) with Marcello Mastroianni and Claudia Cardinale. His film The Conviction won the Silver Bear – Special Jury Prize at the Berlinale International Film Festival in 1991.
In the past, Febiofest presented Bellocchio’s film about the first wife of Benito Mussolini, To Win (Vincere, 2009), and The Dormant Beauty (Bella addormentata, 2012), which was in the programme of the film festival in Venice where Bellocchio received the life achievement award in 2012. Last year, he introduced there his latest film, Blood of My Blood (Sangue del mio sangue) with Alba Rohrwacher in one of the leading roles.
Nine years ago when the Febiofest programme directors, Stefan Uhrik and Hana Cielova, started to cooperate with the festival, they also wanted to show Czech films in Czech premiere or distribution preview only.
“We did not have a single one then. Now, we have so many that we have created a special section entitled The Czech Trace,” Cielova said.
This year, the festival will show at least eight films that were shot in Czech production or coproduction.
