Ben Kingsley and Giuseppe Tornatore to be honored at Ischia fest

The great British actor Sir Ben Kingsley and Giuseppe Tornatore, the world’s best-loved Italian director, (both already Oscar winners), will receive the Ischia Legend Award 2007, a special prize given to the protagonists of world cinema by the International Art Academy of Ischia. The award will be presented on Saturday July 11th and 14th at the Regina Isabella hotel during the gala evening organized by the Campania Region on the occasion of the fifth edition of the Ischia Global Film & Music Fest (July 9-15), chaired this year by director Paul Haggis.
 Ben Kingsley
Sir Ben Kingsley, whose birth name is Krishna Bhanji, was knighted by Queen Elizabeth in 2001 for his contribution to British theater. He was born in Yorkshire in 1943. After his work with the Royal Shakespeare Company, he became a protagonist of much of the world’s quality cinema and television. His international reputation soared thanks to Richard Attenbourgh, who transformed him into an unforgettable Ghandi in the film of the same name, a role that earned him an Oscar. Among his most famous films are Bugsy by Barry Levinson Schindler’s List by Steven Spielberg.

The Sicilian director will receive this new award just a few days after winning the David di Donatello Award for the film La Sconosciuta (“The Stranger”). 51 years old, Tornatore started from his southern Italian roots and made a name for himself among the greatest directors on the international scene: from the documentaries on his homeland to his debut with Il Camorrista, his career culminated with the masterpiece Cinema Paradiso, which won the Oscar for best foreign film. This was followed by Everybody’s Fine with Marcello Mastroianni, A Pure Formality with Gérard Depardieu, The Star Maker, which consolidated Sergio Castellitto’s reputation as an actor, The Legend of 1900, and Malena, which launched Monica Bellucci. Tornatore’s next film will be Baaria, which is the Sicilian version of the word “Bagheria,” the director’s home town. The film, set during the 1940s and 1950s, will feature exclusively Sicilian actors.

The program of the Ischia Global Fest will be presented on July 3 at 12 noon at the Associazione Stampa Estera di Roma (Foreign Press Club of Rome). Participants include Oscar winner Dante Ferretti, Franco Nero, Anna Falchi, Enrico Lucherini, Regional Minister for Tourism and Culture of the Campania Region Marco Di Lello, President of the International Art Academy of Ischia Giancarlo Carriero, and other friends of Italian cinema.

The fifth edition of the Ischia Global Film & Music Fest (www.ischiaglobal.com) is organized by the International Art Academy of Ischia and the Tourist Board of Ischia and Procida, in collaboration with Kimbo Coffee, Fiuggi Mineral Water and the Venice Casino, with the participation of Cinecittà Holding and the Chamber of Commerce of Naples and Medmar. Among the participants who have confirmed their presence this year: actress Hilary Swank and directors Alejandro González Iñárritu and Oliver Stone, together with directors Alfonso Cuaròn, Billie August, Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, Bobby Moresco, Emanuele Crialese, Mimmo Calopresti, and Vincenzo Marra; actors Ioan Gruffudd, Laura Dern, Raul Bova, Alessandra Martines, Monica Cruz, and Enrico Loverso; producers Lawrence Bender, Mark Canton, Jeremy Thomas, Aurelio De Laurentiis, Fabrizio Mosca, Fulvio Lucisano, and Nicola Giuliano; screenwriters, William Monahan, Braulio Mantovani, Marcos Bernstein, and Valerio Massimo Manfredi; musicians David Foster, Gustavo Santaolalla, Luis Bacalov, Laura Pausini, Sheryl Crow, and Humberto Gatika.