MONICA BELLUCCI TO RECEIVE THE 28th TRIESTE FILM FESTIVAL EASTERN STAR AWARD
The prize, celebrating a cinema personality who has contributed through their work to building bridges between Eastern and Western Europe, will be awarded on Saturday 28th January.
MONICA BELLUCCI is the recipient of the 28th TRIESTE FILM FESTIVAL EASTERN STAR AWARD 2017. The Festival takes place from 20th to 29th January. The prize, celebrating a cinema personality who has contributed through their work to building bridges between Eastern and Western Europe, will be awarded on Saturday 28th January during the Festival’s final evening.
While in 2016 the choice was dictated by the desire to recognise a lifetime achievement (the recipient was one of Kieslowski’s “muses” – Iréne Jacob), this time the award goes to the most international of Italian actresses, in the year of her meeting with the most visionary of Eastern European directrors – Emir Kusturica – who wanted Monica Bellucci in particular as the heroine of his latest film: On the Milky Road, chosen to conclude this year’s Festival.
On the Milky Road was presented in competition at Venice last year and will soon be released in Italian cinemas (distributed by Europictures). The film is a modern fairytale set against an unspecified war, and it presents the irrepressible passion that erupts between a man, who takes the milk to the soldiers every day, avoiding the bullets, crossing the front with his mule, and a mysterious Italian woman who turns his life upside down with her arrival… A forbidden love which will engage the two protagonists in a series of fantastic and dangerous adventures. They were brought together by chance and no one seems able to stop them.
“We are delighted that an international star such as Monica Bellucci has accepted our invitation” – say Festival directors Fabrizio Grosoli and Nicoletta Romeo. “The showing of On the Milky Road and the giving of the Eastern Star Award will be the opportunity to celebrate a true diva who, in the course of her career, has linked her name not only to many Italian directors – such as Tornatore, Virzì, Giordana and Alice Rohrwacher – but also to a wide range of international film-makers, including Francis Ford Coppola, Philippe Garrel, Sam Mendes, Terry Gilliam, the Wachowski brothers (Matrix Reloaded and Matrix Revolution), Bahman Ghobadi (Rhino Season) and finally Emir Kusturica himself”.
The Festival – directed by Fabrizio Grosoli and Nicoletta Romeo – is the first and most importan Italian event dedicated to the cinema of Central and Eastern Europe. It was created in the years immediately preceding the fall of the Berlin Wall (the “zero” edition dates back to 1987), and for almost thirty years it has continued to act as a special signpost to the cinema of countries and directors which are often unfamiliar – or even unknown – to Italian, and, in general, Western audiences. More than a festival, it acts as a bridge connecting the cinema of Western and Eastern Europe, discovering names and trends destined for international success.