During the EP plenary session (13-16 November 2017) in Strasbourg, the nominees for LUX Prize 2017 are interviewed: Antoine REINARTZ, actor in "120 Beats per Minute", Lars G. LINDSTRÖM, producer of "Sami Blood" and Valeska GRISEBACH, director of "Western".

Strasbourg

plenary session

interview

LUX Cinema Prize 2017 (T)

Award of the LUX Prize 2017: interviews of the producer / director / actor of the official selection

SOUNDBITE (English): Lars G Lindstr&ouml;m (Sami blood producer): When Sami Blood came out, it was a big surprise to many Swedes that we have actually indigenous people that we have treated this way and for quite some time into the 1900 and the 40s even. The Sami people were treated really badly put it in special schools, nomad schools, that weren&rsquo;t compatible to the Swedish other school systems.

SOUNDBITE (English): Lars G Lindstr&ouml;m (Sami blood producer): Here we have a universal message, I would say. This message would be that embodies this young Sami woman, who acted Elle-Marja in the film, she embodies this strive to be, her right to have an education and to be met by justice and this is a universal strive.

SOUNDBITE (English): Lars G Lindstr&ouml;m (Sami blood producer): This prize is totally fantastic, that we&rsquo;ll get translation into the 24 official languages of Europe and distributed all over. It&rsquo;s really one of the best film prizes ever.

SOUNDBITE (English): Lars G Lindstr&ouml;m (Sami blood producer): We premiered in 2016, in Venice in September, and now more than a year later we are standing here in the middle of Brussels and are nominated to this fantastic prize, it's great. We have had tremendous success with the movie, 180 000 people have seen it in Sweden, it has been distributed for cinema in 30 countries, it has been invited to more than a 100 film festivals, it just continues. But this Lux Prize, it is a fabulous prize for filmmakers, that the film receives new attention, that it will be translated to the 24 official languages in the EU and a promotion package to go out and get screened again.

SOUNDBITE: (English): Valeska GRIESEBACH, Director, "Western': There were different motives, one was my fascination for the Western genre when I was a little girl and to explore this genre as a grown up woman and I think I was quite fascinated about this masculinity which is told in the Western about these solitarian-melancholic heroes who are searching for some kind of adventure and freedom, but maybe sometime looking for a place to come home. I think our society has a lot about this masculinity. At the same I think this genre is very interesting because it deals with setting construction of societies, so what is our law is it the law of empathy, or the law of the strongest and the fittest, so I think this was the beginning and I wanted to do something about xenophobia, not only in Germany, but I come from Germany. So when I found the setting of these German construction workers, travelling with their big machines and knowledge to another country I was very happy and I was very happy to find this setting, because I thought I could tell something about different perspectives in Europe. So for example in Bulgaria Europe is something different than in Germany, in the end the question in the film is for myself, so how close do you really want to come who is strange to you, how courageous you are.

SOUNDBITE (German): Valeska GRIESEBACH, Director 'Western': I hope that the spectator that he feels that relationship in any different form, like in a village where you start friendship and you start to show directly you weak points. That you begin not to stay high above but that you share with the other person who you are and that you can do on a smaller scale but also on a wider society level.

SOUNDBITE (English): Valeska GRIESEBACH, director 'Western': It is really wonderful that we are nominated and this Lux Prize is a wonderful award because it really shows the interest in European cinema, it is a good initiative and for me and my team it is a real pleasure.

SOUNDBITE (English), Antoine REINARTZ  , actor in the film: 120 BPM, The movie is like some kind of legacy of some activists who are not naive but still are thinking that  democracy give you the tool to change things. It's like some it&rsquo;s a paradigm  of what democracy can be so really is a movie which has full of sense to be there today. This  movie shows us that 150 people can change some rules within our democracies.  

SOUNDBITE (English), Antoine REINARTZ , actor in the film: 120 BPM, There are a lot of countries within Europe where we they are only watching American movies of course and we have to you act together to you to have understand each other.

SOUNDBITE (English), Antoine REINARTZ , actor in the film: 120 BPM, Well the European Parliament has to , and it's showed us recently that it&rsquo;s an institution in which we can still believe, believe in Europe and it has to go in that way.