Film Festival Awards

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31780, 10 September 1968, Page 17

Film Festival Awards

(N.Z.P .A .-Reuter—Copyright) VENICE, (Italy), Sept. 9. The West German film, “Artists of the Big Top,” ("Die Artisten in de Zirkuskuppell”) has won the principal award at the Venice Film Festival. Alexander Kluges’s allegory of the rise and fall of Nazism, portrayed in the happenings of the circus, was “a dark horse” for the Golden Lion of St Mark, the top prize in the world’s oldest international film competition. The American, John Cassavetes, who rocked the festival in 1965 with his avantgarde “Shadows,” took home five awards including that for the best actor (John Marley), for “Faces,” a film depicting the break-up of a marriage after 14 successful years. “Theorem,” the film the

Italian Pier Paolo Pasolini, tried to withdraw from the festival but which his producer insisted on screening, won for Laura Betti the best actress award. It also was awarded the Catholic Film Board prize for the “clear metaphor” in the cinematographic launguage of Pasolini. The Dutch director, Philo Bregstein, won the award for a first work, with “Compromise.” Special awards went to “Our Lady of the Turks,” by the Italian, Carmelo Bene, and “Socrates,” by the Frenchman Robert Lapoujade. The jury singled out for honourable mention: “Tell Me Lies,” by the Briton, Peter Brook, a protest against the Vietnam war; "The Deserter.” by Juro Jakubisko. of Czechoslovakia; and “Mandate.” by Cousman Semben, of Senegal.