Honorary Palm d’Or for Marco Bellocchio
“A tribute to his unique œuvre that has marked contemporary cinema with force and freedom”: this way the Cannes Film Festival has announced the Honorary Palme d’Or award to Marco Bellocchio.
The news has aroused great enthusiasm in Emilia-Romagna and has immediately received the praise of the President of the Region, Stefano Bonaccini, and the regional Councillor for Culture, Mauro Felicori, as well as of the Mayor of Bologna, Virginio Merola, and of the Director of the Cineteca di Bologna, Gian Luca Farinelli.
«Our most sincere congratulations to Marco Bellocchio, a Maestro of international cinema. It is a prestigious and well-deserved recognition that makes us very proud because it awards a filmmaker from Emilia-Romagna who is intimately linked to his homeland, and to Bobbio, in particular», Bonaccini and Felicori declared.
Author and director of masterpieces ranging from his debut film Fists in the Pocket (I pugni in tasca) (1965) to the acclaimed The Traitor (2019), Bellocchio has ever been attached to his origins. Since 2014 he is the President of the Fondazione Cineteca di Bologna; in his native Bobbio, he founded and is the chairman of the Fondazione “Fare Cinema”, a higher education centre offering yearly courses planned and set up involving high-profile directors, screenwriters, authors, and cinema professional; thanks to him, the Bobbio Film Festival – an event proposing the best of Italian latest cinema productions – has been taking place for years.
On July 16, a new feature film by Marco Bellocchio is presented in Cannes, Marx Can Wait (Marx può aspettare): by way of his family, the director tells the story of his twin brother Camillo, who committed suicide in a ‘revolutionary’ year as 1968.
Marco Bellocchio will be awarded Honorary Palm d’Or during the 74th Cannes Film Festival Closing Ceremony on Saturday, July 17.