Vatican Agency Honors Chinese Film Director

Vatican Agency Honors Chinese Film Director

Zhang Yuan Hopes His Award Will Bridge Cultures

VENICE, Italy, SEPT. 5, 2006 (Zenit.org).- The president of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications gave the Robert Bresson Award to Chinese film director Zhang Yuan, saying the honor is "a cultural bridge."

Archbishop John Foley gave the award today in the context of the Venice Film Festival.

Zhang Yuan, born in Nanjing in 1963, was honored in Venice in 1999 when he received a Silver Lion for his film "Seventeen Years," a story of redemption and forgiveness.

"Zhang Yuan is a sincere spokesman of this great artistic and human lesson that Chinese cinema gives the West," explained Vatican Radio when reporting the award.

Archbishop Foley said on Vatican Radio that the award is "a cultural bridge" and hopes "it will be very important for the film industry in China."

Universal value

For his part, Zhang commented: "It is a particularly happy day for me. Archbishop Foley came from Rome especially to give me this Vatican award, an award that not only honors me personally, but which I believe has universal value.

"The Vatican is a state, which has a very influential culture on the whole of humanity, and China has more than 1 billion inhabitants," the director added. "Despite this factual data, the two states do not have diplomatic relations. I hope I will be the first brick of a bridge that unites both cultures. This is the greatest meaning I see in the award."

The Robert Bresson Award, in its seventh edition, is conferred by the Pontifical Councils for Culture and for Social Communications, Italy's Entertainment Entity and the Italian magazine " Il Cinematografo."

I had not heard of Zhang before this; are any of his films available in the U.S. on DVD?