Prince Caspian Fan Art Contest Winner

The Italian premiere of Disney’s “The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian” will be the opening film at the first Fiuggi Family Festival, organizers announced Tuesday.

BMI composer Harry Gregson-Williams will receive the 2006 Richard Kirk Award for Outstanding Career Achievement at the performing right organization’s Film & Television Awards slated for Wednesday, May 17 at the Regent Beverly Wilshire Hotel in Beverly Hills. The British-born composer, who was named Composer of the Year at the 2005 Hollywood Film Festival, is currently working on the Narnia sequel, Prince Caspian.

Aslan, a talking lion with mystical powers, is the central figure in “The Chronicles of Narnia,” the much-beloved seven-volume series of fantasy novels written by the British academic C. S. Lewis in the 1950’s. By the year’s end, if Disney marketers have their way, he will have joined Mickey Mouse, Pinocchio and Buzz Lightyear in a long line of characters that have periodically provided the Burbank giant with entertainment’s most valuable asset, a new fantasy to trade on.