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Polanski to be honoured at Swiss film festival

PR dla Zagranicy
Nick Hodge 29.07.2014 11:01
Director Roman Polanski is set to receive a 'special award' at the Locarno Film Festival in Switzerland when he returns next month to the country in which he was arrested in 2009.

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Image. Press Materials LFF/Guy Ferrandis

Polanski and his actress wife Emmanuelle Seigner will be guests of honour at the event, according to a statement released by the festival office, and the director will also lead a masterclass.

“It has been an enormous pleasure to follow the work of this unique artist who has managed to translate turning points in his own life so creatively, and that of Emmanuelle Seigner, his wife and star of films that mean so much to me, such as Frantic, Bitter Moon and Essential Killing,” the festival's artistic director Carlo Chatrian enthused.

“Finally I am very proud of Polanski’s choice to support the education and training program that the festival has organized. Cinema is also about passing on knowledge: we do not ask the masters to hand down lessons from on high but to share their experiences,” he added.

“I am sure that the opportunity to meet a filmmaker who resists all forms of dogmatism will prove to be one of the most exciting moments of the festival.”

Polanski was arrested in Switzerland in September 2009 after a request for his extradition was lodged by the US concerning a 1978 case of unlawful sex with a minor. He had been due to receive an award at the Zurich Film Festival.

Swiss authorities eventually backed out of the extradition, but Polanski remains a wanted man in the US.

Although France has remained his home since 1979, Polanski returned to Switzerland in September 2011 to collect the award he had been due to receive two years earlier. He has also visited Poland, where he grew up, on at least two occasions since the 2009 arrest.

Polanski is currently considering shooting his next movie, a historical drama about the Dreyfus Affair, in Poland. However, he has specified that he will only do so if Poland provides a cast-iron guarantee that his status in the country will be “completely secure.” (nh)

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