EU Parliament reflects upon cinema and European identities

by Cineuropa

13/10/2010 - The Committee on Culture and Education of the European Parliament (EP) will organize a public hearing on “Cinema and European Identities”, to be held on October 27 at the EP’s Brussels headquarters.

The public hearing will be divided in two sections. In the first, German director Wim Wenders will speak on the role of cinema in founding and fueling a European soul and British author Anne Jäckel will give a lecture on European co-productions, within a historical and institutional perspective.

The second section will centre on the challenges of distribution and promotion of European co-productions. Polish distributor Roman Gutek will focus on the financial instruments designed to improve the distribution of European co-productions, while director of the autonomous Venice Film Festival section Venice Days, Giorgio Gosetti, will talk about techniques for improving the promotion of European films beyond festivals.

The hearing is also an occasion to launch the screenings of the three finalists of the LUX Prize 2010. After a long selection process, closely followed by Cineuropa (see the video interviews with the selection panel), the Members of Parliament will now be asked to watch and vote among Filippos Tsitos’ Plato's Academy [trailer, film focus] (see video interview), Olivier Masset-Depasse’s Illegal [trailer, film focus] (see video interview) and Feo Aladag’s When We Leave [trailer, film focus] (see video interview).

The Lux Prize winner will be announced in November 24 at the plenary sessions of the EP in Strasbourg. The prize will finance subtitling of the film in the EU’s 23 official languages. It will also cover the production of a 35-mm print or a contribution for the DVD release.

Previous winners of the LUX Prize include Fatih Akin’s The Edge of Heaven [trailer, film focus] (2007), Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne’s The Silence of Lorna [trailer, film focus] (2008) and Philippe Lioret’s Welcome [trailer, film focus] (2009).