Lamberto Bava guest of the 7th. edition of the Octopus Film Festival!

We can already proudly announce that one of the main guests of the seventh edition of the Octopus Film Festival and the winner of the Ink Macca for lifetime achievement will be Lamberto Bava, one of the most important Italian directors of the 1980s, creator of “Demons,” “Blade in the Dark,” “Die at Midnight” and “Fantaghiro”!

Lamberto Bava comes from an Italian family with an exceptional tradition of cinema. His grandfather, Eugenio Bava, worked as a cinematographer before the war, and his father, Mario Bava, became a legend of genre cinema in his lifetime. “He used light, shadow, color, sound, movement and textures to guide viewers down a previously unknown path full of collective dreams. Film critics love to compare watching movies to daydreaming. In Bava’s case, this comparison really means something,” Martin Scorsese wrote about Mario Bava. It would be hard to disagree with the creator of “Taxi Driver.” But that’s not all – Bava was also a unique trendsetter in genre cinema. His “Mask of Satan” started the fashion for Italian Gothic, “The Girl Who Knew Too Much” laid the foundation for the giallo genre, “Blood Camp” was the first slasher in cinema history, “Planet of the Vampires” inspired Ridley Scott to create “Alien,” and “Black Feast” (distributed in the United States under the title “Black Sabbath”) borrowed the name of one of the world’s most famous rock groups.

Lamberto Bava has continued his father’s work since the 1960s, first as an assistant and co-director, and later as an independent filmmaker. After his shocking and well-received debut (“Macabro” in 1980), he made one of the biggest hits of Italian horror cinema in the 1980s – the self-conscious, fourth-wall-breaking “Demons,” in which the titular monsters attack viewers during a cinema screening. In the 1990s, on the other hand, Bava became known from another side; as the creator of the “Fantaghiro” fairy tale, also popular on Polish television.

As part of a unique review at this year’s Octopus, we will present seven father and son films – three directed by Mario Bava, three directed by Lambert Bava and one joint film. The shows will be accompanied by meetings with Lambert Bava.