Vatican Agency for Social Communications honors Chinese Film Director

(06,Sept.2006): - The President of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications gave the Robert Bresson Award to Chinese film director Zhang Yuan, saying the honor is "a cultural bridge." Archbishop John Foley gave the award Tues. 5^th Sept. in the context of the Venice Film Festival. Zhang Yuan, who was born in Nanjing in 1963, was honoured in Venice in 1999, when he received a Silver Lion for his film "Seventeen Years," a story of redemption and forgiveness. Archbishop Foley told Vatican Radio that the award is a cultural bridge and hopes it will be very important for the film industry in China. For his part, Zhang commented: "It is a particularly happy day for me. Archbishop Foley came from Rome especially to give me this Vatican award, an award that not only honours me personally, but which I believe has universal value. The Vatican is a state, which has a very influential culture on the whole of humanity, and China has more than 1 billion inhabitants. Despite this factual data, the two states do not have diplomatic relations. I hope I will be the first brick of a bridge that unites both cultures. This is the greatest meaning I see in the award," added film director Zhang Yuan. The Robert Bresson Award, in its seventh edition, is conferred by the Pontifical Councils for Culture and for Social Communications, Italy's Entertainment Entity and the Italian magazine " Il Cinematografo."