By Ray Pride Pride@moviecitynews.com
THREE-TIME ACADEMY AWARD WINNER OLIVER STONE TO ATTEND KARLOVY VARY INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL 2013
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Festival will award the Director, Producer and Screenwriter with the Crystal Globe for Outstanding Artistic Contribution to World Cinema
23 April 2013, London, UK: The Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (KVIFF) today announced that the 2013 recipient of its most prestigious award, the Crystal Globe, will be legendary filmmaker Oliver Stone. Stone will attend Karlovy Vary to accept the award honouring his outstanding contribution to world cinema.
The Festival, which runs June 28 – July 6, will also screen a number of his films, which cover his distinguished career as Screenwriter, Director and Documentary Maker: Scarface (1983), Alexander (2014 – European Premiere of final revised cut at KVIFF 2013) and two episodes of The Untold History of the United States (2012).
Jiří Bartoška, KVIFF President said: “Oliver Stone is a filmmaker who defies traditional assessment. He writes, directs and produces films that engage the entire filmmaking spectrum – from traditional stories to highly provocative movies which often examine pressing social and political issues within his own country and beyond. His contribution to world cinema is unquestionable and we are incredibly honoured to host him at Karlovy Vary 2013 and present him with our most prestigious award.”
Widely recognised for his exploration of the traumas of the Vietnam War, Stone’s first short film Last Year in Viet Nam (1971) was made whilst a student at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. Only seven years later, he adapted William’s Hayes’ Midnight Express into a screenplay for Alan Parker’s Golden Globe and Academy Award®-winning film of the same title (1978). A succession of iconic films followed, including Scarface (1983) directed by Brian De Palma and Year of the Dragon (1985) directed by Michael Cimino.
Stone’s first Vietnam opus, Platoon (1986), was nominated for eight Academy Awards® and won in four categories, including Best Picture and Best Director. He continued with dramatic war experiences writing, producing and directing another successful film, Born on the Fourth of July (1989), for which he garnered his second Academy Award® for Best Director. This loose Vietnam trilogy concluded with the film Heaven & Earth (1993).
Beyond the topic of war, Oliver Stone has presented his audience a glimpse into the intransigent laws of the world of finance in the film Wall Street (1987, Academy Award® for Michael Douglas as Best Actor in a Leading Role) and its sequel Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps (2010); as well as a view of American sport ruled by corporations in Any Given Sunday (1999, with Al Pacino). He covered the mystifying life story and ambiguous death of The Doors’ lead singer, Jim Morrison, in his 1991 biographical drama of the same name, and offered his daring, speculative take on the assassination of President Kennedy in the film JFK (1991), which won Academy Awards® for Best Cinematography and Best Film Editing. Stone portrayed the world of brutal crime in the films Natural Born Killers (1994), U-Turn (1997) and Savages (2012), the rise and fall of two other American presidents in the biographical dramas Nixon (1995) and W (2008). The director then maps out the life and legend of a courageous and ruthless conqueror and one of history’s most prominent figures in the spectacular historical saga Alexander (2004), revised in 2007, with a final revised cut in 2014 – the latter to be shown for the first time in Europe at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival. Stone also captured one of the most tragic events in modern American history in World Trade Center (2006).
His most ambitious endeavour yet, five years in the making was The Untold History of the United States (2012), a ten-hour documentary series co-written by Peter Kuznick, a professor of History and Director of the Nuclear Studies Institute at American University. The series focuses on human events that at the time went under reported, but crucially shaped America’s unique and complex history over the 20th century. Initially broadcast in the U.S. on Showtime Network, he will present two special chapters to Czech audiences.
Previous winners of the Karlovy Vary Crystal Globe for Outstanding Artistic Contribution to World Cinema include Robert Redford, Michael Douglas, Robert de Niro and Miloš Forman.
Other presentations at the 2013 Karlovy Vary International Film Festival will include “Borderline Films: The First Ten Years,” the first complete retrospective of the highly admired New York-based production company. Antonio Campos, Sean Durkin and Josh Mond, are one of the most innovative and respected groups of independent filmmakers. The retrospective will commence with a screening of the first Borderline production, the short BUY IT NOW (2005), for which Campos took first prize at the Cinéfondation at the Cannes Film Festival.
About Karlovy Vary International Film Festival
The Karlovy Vary International Film Festival is ranked by FIAPF among the most prestigious world film festivals, considered the most important film event in Central and Eastern Europe. The Festival introduces film industry representatives and press from all around the world to the newest local production, and presents new quality films from the rest of the world to Central and Eastern Europe’s own industry and press. Each year, up to 350 film directors, actors and other filmmakers personally present their films at Karlovy Vary, with approximately 850 distributors, sales agents, producers, and festival programmers in attendance.