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AWARDS Europe

First LUX Prize goes to Fatih Akin

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With a choice from Cannes Palme d’Or winner 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Cristian Mungiu
interview: Oleg Mutu
film profile
]
by Romanian director Cristian Mungiu and the latest film from veteran director, Portugal’s Manoel de Oliveira, Belle Toujours [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
, members of European Parliament chose to award the very first LUX Prize to The Edge of Heaven [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Fatih Akin
interview: Klaus Maeck
film profile
]
(see Focus) by Turkish-born German director Fatih Akin for its European dimension.

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This morning in the European Parliament in Strasbourg, the President of the Parliament Hans-Gert Pöttering presented well-known actress Hanna Schygulla with the award, an enrolled film symbolising the humanist utopia of language and culture that is the Tower of Babel.

Thus named in homage to the inventors of cinema, the Lumière Brothers, the LUX Prize (from the latin "light") was created to encourage the circulation of films within the European Union. It consists in offering a film subtitling in the 23 languages of the Union. Film industry professionals had chosen from 800 European features produced in Europe between May 2006 and May 2007, those that best seemed to promote the universality of European values and the cultural diversity of the continent. MEPs viewed the films from October 1-18 before deciding on the winner.

With this prize, French MEP, Gérard Onesta, wants to "shatter linguistic barriers and allow the immediate and universal diffusion of the film, thereby proving that diversity is not an obstacle, but an opportunity".

Sold internationally by France’s Pyramide International, The Edge of Heaven opened in Germany at the end of September with great success and is slated for release in Turkey this week before it opens on French, Belgian and Italian screens in November.

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(Translated from French)

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