13/05/2015 - On the occasion of the award to the Italian director there will be a Piazza Grande screening of Fists in the Pocket, some 50 years after its first screening at Locarno

The 68th edition of the Locarno Film Festival will award the Leopard of Honour Swisscom to Marco Bellocchio. With this award the festival pays tribute to an extraordinarily rich career, and affirms the strong links between Locarno and Bellocchio, first forged in 1965 with the screening in the Grand Hotel of his debut feature film, Fists in the Pocket. The stunning anarchy of his film overwhelmed the audience, the critics and the jury, who awarded him the Vela d’argento. A success that immediately thrust him into the spotlight both in Italy and internationally.

The tribute to Bellocchio from the festival directed by Carlo Chatrian will be accompanied by screenings of a selection of his films. Fists in the Pocket will be shown in the Piazza Grande on Friday August 14. The restored print was produced by Kavac Film, via the Cineteca di Bologna at the laboratories of “L’immagine ritrovata”, with support from Giorgio Armani, and will be distributed internationally by The Match Factory.

The festival audience will also have an opportunity to talk to the director, who will reportedly be at the upcoming Venice Film Festival with his new film L'ultimo vampiro, and discover the secrets of his art at a masterclass in the Spazio Cinema.

The Leopard of Honour, supported by Swisscom for the seventh consecutive year, is the Locarno Film Festival’s award in recognition of major contemporary filmmakers. Previous recipients include those of the caliber of Samuel Fuller, Jean-Luc Godard, Ken Loach, Sidney Pollack, William Friedkin, Jia Zhang-ke, Alain Tanner, Werner Herzog and, in 2014, Agnès Varda.

(Translated from Italian)