Munich Film Festival to Honor Terry Gilliam and Emma Thompson

German drama 'Mackie Messer' will open the 36th edition as Cannes titles dominate the lineup.

Director Terry Gilliam and Oscar-winning actress and screenwriter Emma Thompson will be honored this year with lifetime achievement CineMerit Awards at the 36th Munich International Film Festival, which runs June 28-July 7.

Gilliam, whose long-anticipated The Man Who Killed Don Quixote closed Cannes this year, will travel to the Bavarian capital July 7 to receive the honor. Munich will screen the feature, as well as a selection of Gilliam's best-known works, including Brazil, The Fisher King, Monty Python and the Holy Grail and Keith Fulton's and Louis Pepe's 2002 documentary Lost in La Mancha, which traces Gilliam's first, failed, attempt to film the Don Quixote tale.

Before he arrives, however, the Munich fest will pay tribute to two-time Oscar winner Thompson, who will receive the CineMerit honor June 29. The famed British performer won the Academy Award for best actress for Howard's End and picked up a best adapted screenplay nod for her script to Ang Lee's Sense and Sensibility. In Thompson's honor, Munich will screen both those films, as well as the children's hit Nanny McPhee, in which she plays a magical nanny.

Following the CineMerit gala, Munich will screen Thompson's latest, The Children's Act. In the Richard Eyre-directed drama, Thompson plays High Court judge Fiona Maye, who must decide whether or not to force a teenage boy to have a blood transfusion that will save his life. Fionn Whitehead and Stanley Tucci co-star.

The Munich festival also unveiled its lineup Monday and, as is typical for the summer fest, it leans heavily on a best-of selection from Cannes. Among the titles heading to Munich from the Croisette this year are Asghar Farhadi's Cannes opener Everybody Knows, Jia Zhangke's Ash Is the Purest White, Chang-dong Lee's Burning and Palme d'Or winner Shoplifters from Japanese director Hirokazu Kore-eda.

The 36th Munich Festival kids off June 28 with the world premiere of Mackie Messer, Joachim Lang's cinematic adaptation of Bertolt Brecht's Three Penny Opera, which features an all-star German cast, including Lars Eidinger, Hannah Herzsprung, Robert Stadlober and Joachim Krol and Austrian actor Tobias Moretti.