Filmmaker Roman Polanski has been given one of Poland's top film festival awards in Krakow, the city he grew up in during the war, where he'll return during the end of this month to deal with a renewed US extradition request on rape charges.
The 81-year-old director received the "Against the Current" award at the opening of the eighth edition of the PKO Off-Camera Film Festival, which celebrates international independent cinema by first- and second-time filmmakers, said the Hollywood Reporter.
Polanski accepted the award - designed, organizers says, for filmmakers who have demonstrated artistic independence and carved out a distinctive niche - from Polish actor Andrzej Seweryn, who appeared in Steven Spielberg's 1993 multiple-Oscar-winning concentration camp film Schindler's List, with Agnieszka Odorowicz, head of the Polish Film Institute looking on.
Polanski, casually dressed in a blue suit with a white shirt but no tie, told the audience at that he was "extremely touched" by the award.
"This is my city. Years spent in Krakow undoubtedly shaped my artistic soul," he said in remarks published by the Polish Film Institute.
A special screening of Polanski's first feature, his Oscar-nominated 1963 film Knife in the Water, is due to be held at the festival which runs until May 10.
Polanski is due back in court in Krakow on May 22, when a decision may be made on whether he can stay in Poland or will be extradited to the US.
The 81-year-old director is currently fighting a renewed attempt by the US to extradite him to face sentencing on charges of raping a 13 year-old girl in 1977.
