Oliver Stone to be Honored by Shanghai Festival

9:34 PM PDT 5/15/2013 by Clarence Tsui

Oliver Stone
Kurt Iswarienko

“It’s a cruel, cruel world,” Stone tells THR. “You can’t avoid the coldness and the cruelty of it. I was born warm and couldn’t handle that. But now I’m older; I realize it’s nature. I want to find the beauty in it. If I can make poetry, it makes it all tolerable.”

The director will be given the Outstanding Achievement Award at the fest, which will screen seven of his films.

HONG KONG – Oliver Stone has been named the recipient of the Shanghai International Film Festival’s annual Outstanding Achievement Award.

According to a statement released by the festival Thursday, the American director will also appear for Q&As after screenings of seven of his films, including JFK, Wall Street, Platoon, Born of the Fourth of July and Savages.

Stone will also be part of a panel of filmmakers during a directors masterclass in Shanghai. The festival has yet to release a complete list of Stone's films to be shown at the fest. It has not listed the other guests in the masterclass.

PHOTOS: Oliver Stone: Happy, Sane and at the Top of His Game

The prize, which was given to American producer Mike Medavoy last year, will mark a triumphant return to the Chinese city for the 66-year-old Stone. He was a member of the Golden Goblet award jury for the first-ever edition of the event in 1993, when the festival also screened JFK, Salvador and Talk Radio.

Meanwhile, the festival released the main poster art and a promotional trailer for the event this year, which will run from June 15 to 23. A film market will be held from June 17 to 19. The program will be announced on May 20.