Award for Innovative Storytelling Goes to Italian mini-series
On the occasion of the 35th European Film Awards on 10 December, the European Film Academy is honouring the Italian veteran auteur director Marco Bellocchio with the Award for Innovative Storytelling for his outstanding mini-series EXTERIOR NIGHT.
With EXTERIOR NIGHT, Marco Bellocchio returns to the case of the kidnapping and assassination of former Italian Prime Minister Aldo Moro by the Red Brigades in 1978. Already at the centre of his feature film GOODMORNING NIGHT for which he received the FIPRESCI Prize at the 2003 European Film Awards, Bellocchio now dedicates a six-part mini-series to it. Where GOODMORNING NIGHT followed one woman at the centre of the kidnapping, EXTERIOR NIGHT takes different outside points of view – Moro’s fellow senior party colleagues, Red Brigade terrorists not in charge of the kidnapping, the Pope at the time, Paul VI, and Moro’s family.
The European Film Academy has introduced this new category in 2020 to reflect the changes in the cinematic landscape and to celebrate the great innovative achievements in European storytelling.
With Marco Bellocchio, the award goes to a filmmaker who has been active and never stopped searching for over 50 years. He premiered in Berlinale competition with AMORE E RABBIA (1969), at the same festival he won the 1991 Silver Bear with LA CONDANNA. In 2009, he won the Italian David di Donatello as Best Director for VINCERE, in 2020 Best Film for IL TRADITORE. Marco Bellocchio was celebrated with a Career Golden Lion 2011 and an Honorary Golden Palm in 2021. But probably most telling is the fact that he received a Locarno Leopard of Honour in 2015 and six years later was nominated for the Leopard of Tomorrow. Because he truly never stops exploring …
EXTERIOR NIGHT was produced by Lorenzo Mieli for THE APARTMENT, a company of the FREMANTLE group, and Simone Gattoni for KAVAC FILM, in co-production with RAI Fiction, co-produced with ARTE France.
Marco Bellocchio will be guest of honour at the awards ceremony on 10 December to accept the award.
