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VATICAN AGENCY AWARDS CHINESE FILM DIRECTOR
Archbishop John Foley, President of the Pontifical Council for
Social Communications merits the Robert Bresson Awards to Chinese
Film Director Zhang Yuan in the context of the Venice Film Festival.
Archbishop Foley said on Vatican Radio that the award is "a
cultural bridge" and hopes "it will be very important
for the film industry in China." When reporting the award,
The Vatican radio said that Zhang Yuan is a sincere spokesman of
this great artistic and human lesson that Chinese cinema gives the
West.
The awardee, Zhang Yuan was born in Nanjing in 1963. He was honored
in Venice in 1999 when he received a Silver Lion for his film "Seventeen
Years," a story of redemption and forgiveness. For his part,
Zhang commented: "It is a particularly happy day for me. Archbishop
Foley came from Rome especially to give me this Vatican award, an
award that not only honors me personally, but which I believe has
universal value. "The Vatican is a state, which has a very
influential culture on the whole of humanity, and China has more
than 1 billion inhabitants," the director added. "Despite
this factual data, the two states do not have diplomatic relations.
I hope I will be the first brick of a bridge that unites both cultures.
This is the greatest meaning I see in the award."
The Robert Bresson Award, in its seventh edition, is conferred
by the Pontifical Councils for Culture and for Social Communications,
Italy's Entertainment Entity and the Italian magazine " Il
Cinematografo." |
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