FEST Belgrade international film festival honours director Szabó

Hungarian Oscar winning director Istvan Szabó received the special award of the FEST Belgrade International Film Festival (Serbia) late on Friday evening.

Szabó was presented the award in recognition of his outstanding contribution to film art.

Accepting the honour, he spoke with high regard about his friendship with Serbian actor, director Ljubisa Samardzic who died last year, as well as with Serbian director Dusan Makavejev and Vojvodina Hungarian actress writer Eva Ras.

Szabó, who won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film for Mephisto in 1982, turned 80 this month.

The 46th FEST will have Hungarian Márta Mészáros’s film Aurora Borealis competing for the main prize against another 14 titles.

About FEST

The first FEST, under the slogan “A Brave New World” was opened on the 9th of January 1971 in Dom Sindikata, with the screening of Robert Altman’s Mash. Envisioned as the annual review of the best films of the season, the Belgrade International Film Festival – FEST – evolved to become one of the most important festivals on the continent and a pillar event of Belgrade’s cultural life and an indispensable element in the coming of age of many generations of film amateurs.

An important feature of FEST all these years was its openness to films from all parts of the world, as well as to all relevant authors and works that would never have the opportunity to be shown in cinemas. Authors like Theo Angelopoulos, Bob Rafelson, Volker Schlondorff , David Cronenberg, Ken Russel, Wim Wenders, Kieslowski, Herzog had the opportunity to meet each other for the first time in Belgrade, on FEST.

The first FEST was quite spectacular, involving „A Space Odyssey“ by Stanley Kubrick; Dennis Hopper’s „Easy Rider“; the already mentioned „Mash“ by Robert Altman; the films of Eric Rohmer, Louis Bunuel, Zivojin Pavlovic… Although many nostalgically, but rightfully so, consider this first edition of the Festival unmatched, the truth is that in the years that followed, we had the opportunity to see many films that have later been branded as among the best in film history.

Many illustrious international actors and directors have been the festival’s guests over the last four decades: Marcello Mastroianni, Harvey Keitel, Liv Ullman, Bernardo Bertolucci, Sophia Loren, Robert de Niro, Antonioni, Johnny Depp, Milos Forman, Catherine Deneuve, Wim Wenders, Abaz Kiarostami, Hanna Schygulla, the above mentioned Rafelson, Schlondorff, and Russell… An impressive long list of honorable names.

As we wrote on Monday, Hungarian Oscar-winning director István Szabó will be celebrated as special guest at this year’s international film festival in Cottbus. Read more HERE.