Veteran Italian film director Marco
Bellocchio on Wednesday got the European Film Awards' Innovative
Storytelling Prize for his TV serial on the kidnapping and
murder by Red Brigades terrorists of Christian Democrat leader
Aldo Moro in 1978, Esterno Notte.
It is Belocchio's first award from the EFAs, for his first TV
work.
The serial, based on Bellocchio's film of the same name that
came out earlier this year, will be shown on Rai state
broadcaster's flagship Rai Uno channel on November 14,15, and
17.
"I'm obviously happy with this prestigious award, and I thank
(the EFAs)," said Bellocchio, 82, who had previously made a
documentary about the Moro case in 1995, followed by a film abut
it in 2003, Good Morning, Night.
"I have had many nominations for the EFAs in the past, and for
the first time they have honoured a work which curiously is my
first television work."
The awards ceremony will be in Reykjavik on December 10.
Last year the Cannes Film Festival paid tribute to the cult
engage' director with a three-day event culminating in the
presentation of a lifetime achievement award, after his latest
film Marx Can Wait was shown there.
Bellocchio whose films include Fists in the Pocket, The
Prince of Homburg, The Nanny, The Religion Lesson, Win, Dormant
Beauty and The Traitor, received the award along with Jodie
Foster on the final evening of the 74th edition of the iconic
French film fest.
A friend of late cinema great Pier Paolo Pasolini,
Bellocchio's other films include China is Near (1967), Sbatti il
mostro in prima pagina (Slap the Monster on Page One) (1972),
Nel Nome del Padre (In the name of the Father - a satire on a
Catholic boarding school that shares affinities with Lindsay
Anderson's If....) (1972), Victory March (1976), A Leap in the
Dark (1980), Henry IV (1984), Devil in the Flesh (1986), and My
Mother's Smile (2002), which told the story of a wealthy Italian
artist, a 'default-Marxist and atheist', who suddenly discovers
that the Vatican is proposing to make his detested mother a
saint.
In 1991 he won the Silver Bear - Special Jury Prize at the
41st Berlin International Film Festival for his film The
Conviction.
In 1995 he directed a documentary about the Red Brigades and
the kidnapping of Aldo Moro, entitled Broken Dreams. In 2003, he
directed a feature film on the same theme, Good Morning, Night.
In 2006 his film The Wedding Director was screened in the Un
Certain Regard section at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival.
In 2009 he directed Vincere (Win), a biographical drama based on
the life of Benito Mussolini's first wife, Ida Dalser.
He also finished Sorelle Mai, an experimental film that was shot
over ten years with the students of six separate workshops
playing themselves.
He was awarded the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement at the
68th Venice International Film Festival in 2011.
In his 2012 film Dormant Beauty, Bellocchio condemned the
Catholic Church's interference in politics over the high-profile
euthanasia and right-to-die case involving Eluana Englaro.
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