Wim WENDERS, film director, President of the European Film Academy, attends a public hearing on Cinema and European identities, in the European Parliament in Brussels.

Brussels

public hearing

COSTA, Silvia (S&D, IT)

LUX Cinema Prize 2010 (T)

PACK, Doris (EPP, DE)

WENDERS, Wim (DE)

Cinema and European identities: extracts from the public hearing with the presence of Wim WENDERS, film director, President of the European Film Academy

SOUNDBITE (English), Doris PACK (EPP, DE), Chair of the CULT Committee, I am firmly convinced that there can be no genuine sense of European shared identity if we forget the specific role and value of culture and in particular of cinema.

SOUNDBITE (English), Wim WENDERS, film director and President of the European Film Academy, Movies practically invented the American dream; they can do wonders for the image of Europe if only Europe would make more use f its very own cinema for its own image as well as for its identity. If only Europe would not be so shy about its greatest asset: culture and yes: film culture.

SOUNDBITE (English), Wim WENDERS, film director and President of the European Film Academy, For most of these young audiences all over Europe the option of European cinema does not exist anymore. For them the movies are synonymous with 'blockbusters'; a giant global industry is catering to them and very much concentrating on them with big guns.

SOUNDBITE (English), Wim WENDERS, film director and President of the European Film Academy, We appeal to the EU member states to take the subject of 'film education' or 'film literacy/cinema literacy' on the agenda of the Council of ministers in charge of education, with the aim to allow 'film' like 'art' and 'literature' to become a stable, integrative part of the school curricula and not be treated any longer as only a complementary programme.

SOUNDBITE (English), Wim WENDERS, film director and President of the European Film Academy, Borders between most countries in Europe has disappeared, but the films from all these places we like to travel to are travelling less and less: that traffic is about to come to a grinding halt. If we do not react and do something, a whole generation will not only be missing an important element of European culture integration, but also a very own tool for exchange and social mediation.

SOUNDBITE (English), Wim WENDERS, film director and President of the European Film Academy, We need to equip our children with the skills to decode images so they still have the taste for their own ones. So we can continue in Europe to produce and project our own imaginary, our own image and identity in the future. Otherwise there won't be the Europe we are dreaming of, there'll only be its administration left, until people will get sick and tired of it.

SOUNDBITE (English), Anne J&#196;CKEL, author of &apos;European Film Industries&apos;, Given the resurgence of nationalist movements in Europe today, there is an urgent necessity for the institutional to become more political and less on the defensive, in reasserting its cultural objectives and choosing its cultural priorities.

SOUNDBITE (Italian), Silvia COSTA (S&amp;D, IT), on the need to push forward the possibility of member states to have access to the funds for the digitalisation of European cinema houses: Today they are very few possibilities for this funding and this should become a priority if we want to get closer to the level of American film industry.

SOUNDBITE (English), Wim WENDERS, film director and President of the European Film Academy, With digitalisation I please urge you to keep in mind, as necessary as that is to digitalise as many screens in Europe as possible, do it in a way that is not blocking access of our cinema to the theatres; that is not done with coding... that it's not done in a way that it limits access of our cinema to the digital distribution but that it opens it.