Aug 14, 2009 - 21:30

Locarno honours Exorcist director Friedkin

American film director William Friedkin has been honoured by the Locarno Film Festival for his body of work.

Friedkin, who directed the 1985 film To Live and Die in LA, received a Golden Leopard, Locarno's highest award, at the 62nd running of the festival.

The director was also behind classics including The French Connection and The Exorcist.

"Do not call me only a horror director just because I filmed The Exorcist," he said, adding the film was rather an expression about the power of faith.

Friedkin has directed about 20 feature films over his 40-year career but has also been behind more than 2,000 live television programmes, ranging from sports events to cooking shows.

In 1962, he made the documentary, The People vs. Paul Crump, a film about a barely literate man sentenced to death for the 1950s murder of a security guard. The film won the Golden Gate Prize at the San Francisco Film Festival and resulted in the commutation of Crump's death sentence.

In 2006, some 44 years later, Friedkin made his debut as an opera director at the Bavarian State Opera, directing Richard Strauss's Salome and Wolfgang Rihm's Das Gehege.

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