NEW DELHI: Serbian writer and director Djordje Kadijevic, author of numerous unforgettable cinematic masterpieces and pioneer of fantastic cinema in ex-Yu region will receive the Honorary Vicous Cat Award for lifetime achievement on the closing day of the 10th Grossmann Fantastic Film and Wine Festival.

The festival which began on 15 July will conclude on 19 July at Ljutomer, Slovenia.

Kadijevic already had got a place among the giants of cinema with his debut feature, the gloomy wartime drama A Festivity (Praznik), a multi-layered masterpiece set in World War 2. Among the fans of the fantastic he is most known for his cult TV film She-Butterfly (Leptirica), the first Yugoslavian horror film. He is also an art critic, essayist, publicist and art theorist.

Kadijevic was born in Sibenik, Croatia, in 1933. An art historian by education, he started making in the late 1960s. His next films The Trek (Pohod, 1968), The Fiery One (zarki, 1970) and The Colonel's Wife (Pukovnikovica, 1971) were also dealing with war. Very soon he also began working for television, his first TV film being medieval drama A Miracle (Cudo, 1971).

In 1973, he made three groundbreaking fantastic films for the TV series entitled Tales of Mystery and Imagination: She-Butterfly, which was initially received with shock and panic, grim gothic romance A Maiden's Music (DeviCanska svirka) and metaphysical dark fantasy The Protected One (Sticenik). He continued his career on televison with splendid movies such as The Oath (Zakletva, 1974) and The Death of Karadjordje (Karadordeva smrt, 1983), and award-winning TV Series Vuk Karadzic (1987-1988). Gothic horror A Holy Place (Sveto mesto, 1990) was his long awaited return to a film made for cinemas.

A special retrospective will include his films A Miracle, She-Butterfly, The Protected One and A Holy Place.