The jury awarded the prize in the "Filmmakers of the Present" competition on August 11, the final day of the ten-day festival, Film Union Reported. Fliegauff attended the awards ceremony.
The film was up against 18 other films in the category.
Fliegauff not only directed the film, he also composed the soundtrack, writing an ambient score which allows the viewer to see the film on various levels without forcing any kind of interpretation. Watching a film in this way leads to a kind of metaphysical experience, which fits well with the transcendent world created in Fliegauff's earlier films.
Milky Way was produced by Inforg Studio under the direction of András Muhi. The film's co-producers were Mónika Mécs, Ernő Mesterházy, György Durst and Sándor Sőth.
Fliegauf won the Wolfgang Staudte award at the Berlin Film Festival for his first feature Forest in 2003. His next film, Dealer, received numerous awards at international film festivals, including ones in Wiesbaden, Mar del Plata and Lecce, all in 2004; and in Pula, Palic and Khanty-Mansiysk in 2005. The film won prizes in Batumi and Rouen in 2006, and in Istantilla this year.
Over the sixty-year history of the Locarno Film Festival, only three Hungarian films have been awarded a Golden Leopard: Sándor Simó's Those Who Wear Glasses (1969), István Szabó's 25 Fireman's Street (1974) and Pál Erdőss's The Princess (1983).
