Stockholm Visionary Award 2009 goes to a visionary director and a producer with visions – Luc Besson

The 20th Stockholm International Film Festival presents the Stockholm Visionary Award to French director Luc Besson. Besson will visit the festival to accept the award in person and to meet the audience in a special Face2Face on Nov 26th.

Motivation: Since his debut, Mr Besson has fulfilled the idea of a renaissance man. Making his mark as a writer, director, producer and mogul, Mr Besson has relentlessly explored new worlds and offered us his personal visions from the subway underground and the bottom of the ocean to space and fantastic fairy tales. One can truly say Mr Besson is a visionary film maker and a producer with visions. Luc Besson was born in 1959 in Paris and spent his childhood travelling with his parents, who were professional divers. Like most of his characters Besson has always retained a curtailed approach to dialogue finding expression in actions and kinetic imagery instead. ”From Subway” to the love story of ”The Big Blue” that enchanted a whole generation. In ”Leon” and ”Nikita” he combines the typical action of Hollywood with the French sensibility. He is also responsible for the apocalyptic science fiction ”The fifth Element” and the epic interpretation of the French saint ”Jeanne d’Arc”. In 2000 he founded the production company Eurocorp, now one of Europe’s leading productions companies actively working towards promoting French cinema internationally. He is right now finishing the Arthur trilogy, the third one, ”Arthur and the revenge of Maltazard” being premiered in Stockholm on November 28th as a daytime family gala. On the 26th of November Luc Besson will accept his award and meet the audience in a Face2Face. Stockholm Visionary Award was created in 2004 to high light and honour the visionaries in modern film. The prestigious prize, the 7,3 kg heavy bronze horse – the heaviest film award in the world, is a paraphrase of the Swedish dala horse and is created by Fredrik Swärd. Earlier winners are among others Todd Solondz (2004), Wes Anderson (2007) and Wong Kar Wai (2008) www.stockholmfilmfestival.se Username: press2009 password: stockholm Press contact: Emelie Klein Head of Press +46 8 677 5054 +46 73 209 8474 presschef@stockholmfilmfestival.se 20th Stockholm International Film Festival November 18-29 2009 The Stockholm International Film Festival started in 1990 and is today one of the leading competitive film festival in Europe. The festival takes place every year in November with more than 170 films from more then 40 countries. More than a festival: we organize exclusive screenings and the popular Summer Cinema - an outdoor mini-festival. Every year in April the Stockholm International Film Festival Junior brings the latest films to youngsters between 6 and 16 years of age. WE LOVE FILM!

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