BAFTA to Honor Peter Greenaway for Outstanding British Contribution to Cinema

Filmmaker Peter Greenaway is being honored by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) this weekend, with an outstanding British contribution to cinema award.

BAFTA film committee chairman Nik Powell lauded Greenaway as "an iconic British filmmaker" who has worked with many "of our most accomplished actors including Michael Gambon, Tim Roth, Ewan McGregor and the recipient of this year's BAFTA fellowship Helen Mirren." His latest film, Eisenstein in Guanajuato starring Elmer Back, Luis Alberti, Stelio Savante and Lisa Owen, is scheduled for release later this year.

Greenaway said: "Given the always complex effort involved, to be permitted in the first place to make films with so many collaborators always astonishes me, and to be permitted the license to do so with such freedom to continually experiment even more so. Everyone agrees that cinema is changing its characteristics very fast and to be awarded a BAFTA for trying to contribute to that change is a pleasure and a delight, an encouragement and an acknowledgment that the effort is valuable, certainly for myself and certainly for all those numerous collaborators who have assisted me in this effort over more than thirty years."