In 1986 the Montreal World Film Festival organized a tribute in my honour presenting five of my productions: BITTER RICE by Giuseppe De Santis, LA STRADA and NIGHTS OF CABIRIA by Federico Fellini, WAR & PEACE by King Vidor and THREE DAYS OF THE CONDOR by Sydney Pollack.

My involvement in the Festival activities was doubled as my most recent production BLUE VELVET, directed by David Lynch was in Official competition. David was present too. Although BLUE VELVET did not win, we were very pleased to receive the Best Actor Award for Dennis Hopper, and to see that the film reception was more than encouraging and promising.

It was another big year for the Festival and for the world cinema as BLUE VELVET competed with so many masterpieces, today's classics, like: BETTY BLUE (37.2 LE MATIN) by Jean-Jacques Beineix, France; MY DEAR LITTLE VILLAGE by Jiri Menzel, Czech Republic; EL AMOR BRUJO (LOVE, THE MAGICIAN) by Carlos Saura, Spain; SOREKARA by Yoshimitsu Morita, Japan; LET'S HOPE IT'S A GIRL by Mario Monicelli, Italy.

I enjoyed very much the Festival and the city of Montreal, and was most impressed by the Festival audience, that multitude of well-informed and devoted movie lovers waiting patiently to get into the theatres and see what never had been seen before on the big screen.

Happy 30« th » anniversary to the Montreal World Film Festival and my congratulations to my friend Serge Losique and his team for so many years of hard work on fostering and promoting cinema art from all over the world.

Dino De Laurentiis

Invit� du Festival en / Festival guest in 1986