Marijan Rotar Award Presented to Gualtiero Mocenni

Sculptor and painter Gualtiero Mocenni presented the Marijan Rotar Award at the Festival Centre

Gualtiero Mocenni is inextricably linked with the earliest years of Pula Film Festival, in which he was involved in designing the Festival’s visual identity with his visual art. In close cooperation with Marijan Rotar and other collaborators, he took part in making festival signs and posters, contributing to creating the cultural and artistic atmosphere of the Festival in its formative years.

As the artist himself says, a chance encounter with Marijan Rotar in his youth had a great impact on his entire further career, and it is precisely because of that encounter that he was included in the design of visual material for the Festival programmes and cinema exhibiting in the mid-1950s. This early contact with film art and festival atmosphere made a substantial impact on his professional journey and opened the door to further artistic development and international affirmation.

Although his work far surpasses collaborations at the Festival and he has achieved notable international success as a prominent sculptor and painter, Pula and Pula Film Festival remain the starting point of his artistic formation. Today, his sculptures and artworks stand in numerous public spaces, and in private collections all around the world, while he has simultaneously remained permanently attached to Pula and Istria, whose cultural identity he enriched for decades.

Bt presenting this award to Gualtiero Mocenni, we pay homage to his exceptional artistic work and a rare and invaluable bond – one that brings together Pula and film, past and present, beginning and continuity.