For Cinema That Changes the World

This year's winner of the Honorary Big Stamp award, which ZagrebDox director Nenad Puhovski awards to authors whose quality of work has been present and decisive in documentary filmmaking for years or decades, is Italian filmmaker Gianfranco Rosi.

His oeuvre so far includes only six feature-length, one medium-length and several short documentaries, but Rosi has so far "conquered" both Venice and Berlin. In addition to the Venetian Golden Lion for Sacro Gra, which went down in history as the first documentary to win the main award at Mostra, and the Berlin Golden Bear for Fire at Sea, Rosi also counted among his awards the European Film Academy Award, the Cinéma du Réel Award and Oscar nomination. He won the Big Stamp of ZagrebDox in 2014 for the film Sacro Gra, screened in the Regional competition.  

Although he was not able to personally receive the award at ZagrebDox, Rosi sent a letter of thanks to the festival, which is reproduced below:  

Thank you for this award, for choosing and understanding my work.

I am happy to have received it from Nenad Puhovski, a brave documentarian and a man who fights for cinema that changes the world by telling it. For cinema tout court, without the old differences between documentary and feature film.

I wish I could have been with you in Zagreb, but I am promoting my film In Viaggio, while at the same time I am working on a new film. It's a matter of time, but not only that: it's hard to move from one emotion to another when you're working with everything you have - soul, heart, body.

Thanks again Gianfranco Rossi   *cover photo: portrait of Gianfranco Rossi / photo author: Vittorio Zunino Celotto