Lux Prize: 10 years of film enlightenment 

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"Cinema is the most magnificent, beautiful, wonderful medium”, Ken Loach tells MEPs  

Europe should continue to support film creation and distribution as important tools for our cultural diversity,

MEPs and filmmakers underlined on Monday evening in a Lux Prize 10th anniversary debate. Translation and subtitling help to circulate works and promote European values, especially in time of crisis, they added. Film directors Ken Loach, Céline Sciamma and Andrea Segre participated in a very animated debate with Members of the Culture Committee on this occasion.


The Lux Prize pays tribute to the creativity of Europe and it plays a significant role in spreading the word of young directors across Europe, said Culture Committee chair Silvia Costa (S&D, IT), at the opening of the debate. "In ten years, the Lux Prize has selected one hundred visions of the Europe, through the original points of view of authors representing the independent European cinema. The Prize has hightlighted the diversity and richness of European film making, of its themes, sensibilities and creative languages. We commit ourselves to the development of the European cinematographic policy through the Lux Prize, because there can be no Europe without its cinema", she added.


"Cinema is the most magnificent, beautiful, wonderful medium”, Ken Loach tells MEPs


The richness of the European cinema and the need for EU support to protect and promote it were well underlined by film director Ken Loach in an impassioned address to Culture Committee members.

Observing that the European Parliament’s Lux Prize is well entitled, he said “Light is needed in cinema, both to make films, and to shed light on our public discourse. We should remember the reason for and the values of the Enlightenment.”


Mr Loach denounced the use of the culture as a commodity or an investment. He underlined the responsibility of the filmmakers to "tell the truth" about the societies we live in. “Cooperation at European level is essential and the EU Creative Europe and Media programmes  are the right instruments to support it. Britain should fight to remain part of this European collaboration, for the benefit of European cinema”, he said.


European filmmakers promote cinema as  a lively heritage


European cinema is part of our heritage and it is our duty to make this patrimony and its values circulate, but it is particularly a lively heritage, Céline Sciamma and Andrea Segre underlined during the debAte. They shared their experience and involvement in various projects designed to make cinematographic works available for a wider audience.


Addressing filmmakers’ concerns about the need for support and protection for culture, creative industries and cinema workers, Culture Committee members insisted on the important role of creative Europe and other EU programmes in financing all these creative sectors. They all stressed the positive role of this support, as well as the urgent need to find a balance between funds available and good projects.