The 14th Mumbai Film Festival will confer a lifetime achievement award on Chinese director Zhang Yimou. The director of acclaimed films like Raise the Red Lantern, Curse of the Golden Flower, House of Flying Daggers and Hero, Zhang is the first Asian director to be conferred the award by the Mumbai Academy of Moving Images.
Zhang will be attending the opening ceremony of the Mumbai Film Festival, which starts on October 18. The previous awardees include Oliver Stone and Morgan Freeman.
The filmmaker will also interact with students from various film schools during his four-day stay in India, said festival director, S. Narayan here on Wednesday. The winner of several awards including the Grand Jury Prize at Cannes for his film To Live, two Bafta awards, and a Golden Bear at Berlin Film Festival, Zhang is known for his rich use of colour. He also co-directed Ju Dou, the first mainland Chinese film to be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.
“Zhang is one of the few Chinese filmmakers who have brought international acclaim to Chinese cinema. What makes him such a great filmmaker is the way he works with huge canvases and mounts them on the screen. It is magnificent,” added Narayan.