Madam Commissioner,

Vice-President Dobrev,

Ms Verheyen, Chair of the Committee on Culture,

Dear colleagues,

Many of you are newly elected to Parliament and this will therefore be the first time you are attending its LUX Film Prize award ceremony.

Please allow me therefore to say a few words about this initiative, of which our institution may be extremely proud.

The LUX Film Prize has been running for 13 years, and hence is very much a newcomer, especially when compared to universally famous awards, such as the Golden Lion that has been awarded at the Venice Film Festival for 76 years, the Palme d’Or that has been awarded at the Cannes Film Festival for 72 years, the Golden Bear that has been awarded at the Berlin International Film Festival for 70 years or the Oscars, which have been around for 92 years.  

In our thirteenth year, we are barely out of our infancy.

However, to those who have doubts as to the prestige of this award, I say: just give it time.

To those who doubt its worth, I say: if you just take the trouble to watch the films that have been discovered and brought to audiences thanks to the LUX Prize, you will become the staunchest advocates of this initiative.

To those who complain that they cannot spare two hours to sit in a darkened room, I reply that the escape offered by the silver screen is a priceless and magical journey, rich in adventures and experiences, taking us to places, people and situations that we, as representatives of the peoples, nay the people of Europe, must be able to understand and explain.

Cinema is one of the many simple keys that can help us unlock the door to an understanding of the reality in which we live.  

And unlike American blockbusters, European cinema has never abandoned its commitment to describing and telling the story of our complex and multi-faceted society.

Just think of Italian Neorealist films such as - ‘Roma città aperta’ (Rome, Open City) or ‘Ladri di biciclette’ (Bicycle Thieves) or the French New Wave with ‘Les Quatre Cents Coups’, ‘Hiroshima mon amour’ and ‘Fahrenheit 451’.

Think of Ken Loach, Costa Gavras, Kieslowski and Wajda, Wim Wenders and Volker Schlondorff, Milos Forman and Istvan Szabo,

Agnes Varda and Almodovar.

Pardon me for omitting many illustrious names that should be mentioned here. However, this brief overview was not intended to be exhaustive but simply to show that, even before tearing down the walls dividing Europe, before creating a monetary union or opening borders, we developed with a common cultural heritage that also extends to film and which has made us more united.

It has made us more European.

With our dreams, our soaring emotions, we have crossed borders that just a few decades before were truly insurmountable.

We have reduced the distances separating us from our neighbours.

Even before being able to take a train or plane and see the sky above Berlin, la Rive Gauche in Paris, Prague Castle, the Trevi Fountain or the Potemkin Stairs, our imaginations merged and took wing together through art, literature, theatre and, above all, thanks to the evocative power of the cinema.

A recurring criticism of the European Union, dear colleagues, is that it has no soul, that it is a supranational bureaucracy imposing strict economic rules, removed from the needs of its citizens and deaf to the urgent needs of the most vulnerable. We in this Chamber are all aware that we cannot just wait until the run-up to elections before deciding to engage with those we represent. At the same time, we are also aware of the danger of becoming caught up in technicalities in what is sometimes a struggle to deal with the complexities of our daily work.

We must also be able to communicate emotions and use new languages.

The LUX Prize provides us with an extraordinary opportunity to do just that.

And we must seize this opportunity to examine issues such as immigration, the right to healthcare, feminism and political ethics through the films showcased by the LUX Prize.

Cinema provides a stimulating challenge that must be encouraged when it comes to addressing issues such as the climate emergency, our colonial past and our model society.

We are the only Parliament in the world that awards a film prize. Let us try to be proud of this.

The LUX Prize has successfully ventured where none of the above‑mentioned festivals has dared to tread. All three films that you have had the opportunity to see during the last few weeks have been subtitled in 24 languages and shown in all 28 EU Member States.

Simultaneous screenings and debates have been organised in 46 different cities with the support of the Commission’s Creative Europe programme, for which I would like to express my thanks. Without Creative Europe and its MEDIA sub-programme, our European cultural heritage, not to mention our economy, would be much worse off. Since 1991, MEDIA has invested EUR 2.6 billion in European content, creativity and cultural diversity, thereby developing a sector accounting for 8 million jobs and 4.5 % of European gross domestic product.

Finally, I should like to pay tribute to the courage and commitment of the directors present in the Plenary today.

Making films is not easy. It takes many months of research, writing, rewriting, competing for funding, co-production, casting, filming, months of confinement to post-production suites to correct sound or lighting, cut or add scenes and, finally, finding film festivals and cinemas to screen the fruits of their labours and meeting the public to explain works that have taken years to complete!

If we manage to get to the cinema, what we are seeing is the finished work, the final product. However, it would be deeply unfair to underestimate the sacrifices and risks assumed by the directors and authors that we are lucky enough to have with us here today.

Yesterday we heard from Oleg Sentsov, a Ukrainian film director and winner of the 2018 Sakharov Prize, who was, until a few months ago, serving a prison sentence in Russia for his ideas.

When I speak of risk and sacrifice, I am of course also thinking of those authors and directors who have had the courage to ask uncomfortable questions and address burning political issues. I am thinking of their constant struggle for freedom of expression and creativity.

That is why I wish to say once again: We must hold in great honour and esteem the LUX Prize awarded by the European Parliament and the directors and authors we have had the privilege to meet. Long live freedom of expression, long live the European cinema, long live the LUX Prize!