There is something poetic about welcoming Eran Riklis back to Linea d’Ombra, which loved him right from the start with his beautiful Vulcan Junction, after years of success and critical acclaim. The connection with Italy is also poetic, if it is true that Cup Final, the film that first took him to the Berlinale and made him win the Moscow Film Festival, told the story of two enemies who unite in their support for the Italian national team at the 1982 World Cup in Spain.

In years such as these, fierce, cynical and painful, the light of his art has always sought to unite, never to divide, to love rather than hate, often shown in its most ridiculous, sometimes bureaucratic form. He always knew how to paint portraits and human landscapes of extraordinary power. This is how masterpieces such as Syrian Bride, Lemon Tree, The Human Resources Manager, Spider in the Web (with Monica Bellucci) and the last beautiful Reading Lolita in Tehran. Which is like seeing Eran Riklis in Salerno: revolutionary, poetic, political, courageous. Like his cinematography, which we will reward with the inevitable “Masters of Cinema” award.

BANCA CAMPANIA CENTRO HANDS THE SPECIAL LINEA D’OMBRA MAESTRI DEL CINEMA AWARD OVER TO THE DIRECTOR