“Locarno City of Peace Award” to director Mohammad Rasoulof
Keystone-SDA
The first-ever Locarno City of Peace Award was presented today to Iranian director Mohammad Rasoulof. This was announced in a statement by the Locarno Film Festival, which conferred the new award on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the Locarno Pact.
The prize was awarded as part of Diplomacy Day, promoted by the Festival, and is intended to honour figures from the cultural world who have distinguished themselves in the promotion of peace, diplomacy and dialogue between peoples, the film festival’s press office writes today.
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Awarded every two years, the prize was created with the aim of reinforcing Locarno’s role as a city that symbolises dialogue and peaceful coexistence and to mark the centenary of the 1925 Locarno Pact, a crucial step in 20th century European diplomacy, the note continues.
“The jury decided to bestow the prize on Mohammad Rasoulof, a remarkable creator of poetic and political cinema, whose work powerfully and profoundly explores themes of freedom, individual responsibility, and human dignity,” the Festival note states.
With films such as There Is No Evil (Golden Bear at the Berlinale) and The Seed of the Sacred Fig (Special Jury Prize at Cannes 2024 and presented on the Piazza Grande at Locarno77), Rasoulof has succeeded in combining formal rigour and civil commitment, the organisers said.
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Last year, the director was sentenced in Iran to eight years in prison and flogging. Shortly before his arrest, he managed to flee the country.
Adapted from Italian by DeepL/ac
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