Acclaimed British director Peter Greenaway will be the special guest of the Valletta Film Festival 2018, to be held from June 8 to 17.

Mr Greenaway will be present for the opening ceremony of the festival on June 8 and for the special screening of a documentary about his career entitled The Greenaway Alphabet directed by Dutch multimedia artist and director Saskia Boddeke, on Saturday June 9 at Pjazza Teatru Rjal.

On June 10, Mr Greenaway will give a two-hour masterclass – ‘Water’ – in which the director will focus on the presence and importance of water on our planet and in our lives and his long relationship with it in his films whether through the photography of clouds, fog, mist, snow, seas or tears. 

The Valletta Film Festival will show some of Greenaway’s most acclaimed works, including The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover, The Pillow Book and his acclaimed film debut, The Draughtsman’s Contract.

Although only in its fourth year, the Valletta Film Festival is now Malta’s biggest cinematic event and a major cultural one, exhibiting 40 feature films and 27 shorts annually. Over 120 screenings will be held during the 10 days of the festival. 

The festival has three competitive sections, in which seven features, seven documentaries and 22 short films compete for awards including Best Feature Film, Best Documentary and Best Short Film.