Speech at the Lux Prize award ceremony

Met dank overgenomen van Voorzitter Europees Parlement (EP-voorzitter) i, gepubliceerd op dinsdag 24 november 2015.

Winners of the Lux Prize,

Members of the jury,

Colleagues,

Ladies and gentlemen,

It is an honour for me to present the Lux Prize once again this year.

Since it was set up in 2007, the prize has helped to bring outstanding films to new audiences.

To give but one example, our 2014 winner has gone on to claim a number of prizes, including an Oscar, for his magnificent film Ida. I can only wish this year’s three finalists similar success.

European cinema deserves our support at a time when the way in which we fund and consume the arts is being revolutionised in Europe. We must do all we can to protect this source of cultural and economic wealth from which Europe benefits in so many ways.

We must take every opportunity to emphasise the fact that Parliament supports creative artists who show real ambition and who strive to portray the world in all its facets, to show it at its best and at its worst.

This year,

Mediterranea gives a raw, physical but warm-hearted account of the experiences of two immigrants from Burkina Faso as they come to grips with a Europe in which humanity has given way to suspicion and racism.

Mustang takes us into the gilded prison occupied by five young Turkish sisters, five independent women, who their country’s patriarchal, conservative and hypocritical society is trying bend to its will.

Lastly, Urok questions our morality and our sense of honour in a society in which money has changed everything, not just for young people, but for all of us.

These three very different films raise fundamental questions: how must our emigration continent change in order to become an immigration continent, what role do women have in societies on our doorstep, how is the economic crisis making it more difficult for us to live side by side.

This year once again, I am proud that the European Parliament is playing its part in ensuring that these three films are distributed as widely as possible, by funding their subtitling in the 24 official languages of the European Union.

At a time when obscurantists are seeking to plunge us into a darkness without culture, sensibility or collective understanding, let us celebrate the very special light this prize shines on our own European society.