Scorsese says not saying goodbye to cinema,has films to make

(ANSA) - ROME, OCT 7 - Oscar winner Martin Scorsese said ahead of picking up the Italian Cinema Museum's top honour in Turin Monday that he was not yet saying goodbye to cinema and still had a lot of films to make.
    "No, I absolutely don't mean to say goodbye to cinema. I still have some films to make, I hope God gives me the strength and the sun to do them", the 81-year-old Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, Goodfellas, The Departed and The Aviator director said in a meeting with the press at the Cinema Museum in the northwestern Italian city, where he will receive the Stella della Mole Award Monday evening.
    "The film about Sinatra has been postponed, the one about Jesus I'm working on" explained the Sicilian-American director regarding the postponement to an indefinite date of the two films he had announced he wanted to shoot shortly, Life of Jesus and Sinatra, back-to-back.
    Scorsese has been in his parent's native land recently shooting a documentary on ancient shipwrecks in Sicily.
    The Little Italy-born maestro, whose parents were from villages in the Palermo area, said he felt "I can unveil something unknown to the audience" and said he was "grateful to Sicily and the Sicilians for the welcome they have given me, once again" in shooting the doc on the ancient Greek and Roman wrecks.
    Scorsese is in Turin Monday and Tuesday to pick up the award from the Italian Cinema Museum and to give a masterclass.
    At Tuesday night's award ceremony there will be also be Italian Oscar winning director Giuseppe Tornatore (Cinema Paradiso), and Rome-based actor Willem Dafoe, and the screenwriters, as well as husband and wife, Dante Ferretti and Francesca Lo Schiavo.
    There has so far been no confirmation on the possible surprise arrival of Leonardo DiCaprio who could present the award to Scorsese.
    The director is a guest for the first time at the Museo Nazionale del Cinema, which in 2013 created an exhibition dedicated to him in collaboration with the Deutsche Kinemathek and which displays the original costumes of Gangs of New York in its permanent exhibition.
    Scorsese will hold a Masterclass on October 8, preceded by a public red carpet at 5:30 pm.
    Cinema Massimo will also dedicate a tribute to him (October 11-13) that will be introduced personally by the maestro, again on Tuesday October 8 at 8 pm, together with the special screening of one of his most beloved classics, Raging Bull, which is already sold out. (ANSA).