Editor

Raoul Servais will receive Dragon of Dragons award at 47th Krakow Film Festival

At the opening ceremony of the 47th Krakow Film Festival on 31st May Raoul Servais - one of the most outstanding directors of animated films – will receive Dragon Of Dragons lifetime achievement award. Servais welcomed this information with a satisfaction and confessed that it’s a great honor to be awarded at one of the most important film festivals in the world organized in country which has brought art of animation to a very high level thanks to a lot of outstanding talented artists.
The audience of the 47th Krakow Film Festival (31.05 – 05.06. 2007) will have a remarkable opportunity to watch films directed by Raoul Servais as a retrospective of his work will be one of the highlights of the Festival.
The Dragon of Dragons award was established in 1998 by the Programme Council of the Krakow Film Foundation, the organizer of the Krakow Film Festival, to honor exceptional artistic contribution to the history of documentary or animated film. Up to now following directors have been awarded with Dragon of Dragons: Bohdan Kosiński, Raymond Depardon, Werner Herzog, Albert Maysles, Kazimierz Karabasz, Jan Lenica, Jan Svankmajer, Stephan & Timothy Quay, Juri Norstein.
RAOUL SERVAIS is considered to be one of the greatest living directors of animated films. He was born on 1st of May 1928 in Belgium. At the age of twenty two graduated form Academy of Fine Arts in Ghent, in 1956 he worked as an assistant of famous surrealist – Rene Magritte. His films, which oscillate between magic realism and expressionism, show a great eclecticism in terms of used techniques. “The diversity in style and technique in my work originated from my tendency towards experimenting”, says director. According to words of Professor Jerzy Kucia – member of Programme Council of the Krakow Film Foundation – Servais has brought to an art of animation his own conception of animated film marked by a profound humanity and deep concern about social problems.
After finishing such animations as “Harbour Lights (produced in 1960), which director himself calls his “first real movie”, „The False Note” (1963) and „Chromofobia” (1965), Servais startled audience with “Harpya”. This film, produced in 1979, is no more a nice poetic story, not a parables that clearly reveals a message. Shocking subject and combination of three different techniques in "Harpya" (live action, photograph, animation) attracted the attention of critics and brought him the Palme d'Or in Cannes.
Among his other films are: "Sirene", "Goldframe", "To Speak or Not To Speak", "Pegasus". His films have won more than fifty different international prizes and awards. In 1963 Servais founded the Animation Film Department at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Ghent. From 1985 to 1994 Raoul Servais held a position of President of ASIFA (Association Internationale du Film d'Animation).