On Wednesday, veteran Italian film director Marco Bellocchio got the European Film Awards’ Innovative Storytelling Prize for his TV serial about the kidnapping and murder of Christian Democrat leader Aldo Moro by Red Brigades terrorists in 1978, Esterno Notte.

It is Belocchio’s first award from the EFAs, for his first TV work.

The serial, based on Bellocchio’s film of the same name, that came out earlier this year, will be shown on Rai state broadcaster’s flagship Rai Uno channel on November 14,15, and 17.

“I’m obviously happy with this prestigious award, and I thank (the EFAs),” said Bellocchio, 82, who had previously made a documentary about the Moro case in 1995, followed by a film about it in 2003, Good Morning, Night.

“I have had many nominations for the EFAs in the past, and for the first time they have honoured a work, which curiously is my first television work.”

The awards ceremony will take place in Reykjavik on December 10.

Last year the Cannes Film Festival paid tribute to the cult classic director with a three-day event, culminating in the presentation of a lifetime achievement award, after his latest film Marx Can Wait was shown.

Bellocchio, whose films include Fists in the Pocket, The Prince of Homburg, The Nanny, The Religion Lesson, Win, Dormant Beauty and The Traitor, received the award, along with Jodie Foster, on the final evening of the 74th edition of the iconic French film fest.

A friend of late cinema great Pier Paolo Pasolini, Bellocchio’s other films include China is Near (1967), Sbatti il mostro in prima pagina (Slap the Monster on Page One) (1972), Nel Nome del Padre (In the name of the Father - a satire on a Catholic boarding school) (1972), Victory March (1976), A Leap in the Dark (1980), Henry IV (1984), Devil in the Flesh (1986), and My Mother’s Smile (2002), which told the story of a wealthy Italian artist, a ‘default-Marxist and atheist’, who suddenly discovers that the Vatican is proposing to make his detested mother a saint.

In 1991 he won the ‘Silver Bear’ Special Jury Prize at the 41st Berlin International Film Festival for his film The Conviction.