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Wednesday, May 16, 2007

11 EU-supported films on show at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival

Eleven films funded by the EU's MEDIA programme have been selected at the 60th Cannes International Film Festival 2007 underlining the MEDIA programme's vital role in supporting Europe's film industry. In recognition of the importance of the audiovisual industry to Europe at a time when technology is creating profound changes, EU Ministers will renew their commitment to Europe's audiovisual sector by attending the Europe Day at Cannes on 26 May. The French-Brazilian filmmaker Walter Salles will be the patron of this 5th Europe Day.

At this year's Berlin Film Festival, the EU's launched its new €755 million MEDIA 2007 programme, providing vital support to keep Europe's audiovisual sector competitive over the next seven years.

Following the success of MEDIA-supported European films earlier this year at the Oscars - with Oscars for Das Leben der Anderen (The Lives of Others), El Laberinto del Fauno (Pan's Labyrinth) and The Queen, the 60th Cannes Festival has included in its selection 11 films that received support from the MEDIA Programme for their development and/or distribution:

Official Competition
- Auf der Anderen Seite by Fatih Akin (MEDIA support €70,139) - Six characters seek forgiveness and reconciliation between Germany and Turkey.
- Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi (€52,560) - A gifted and outspoken young Iranian girl growing up during the Islamic Revolution.
- Import Export by Ulrich Seidl (€46,305) – A nurse from rural Ukraine who comes to Vienna to start a new life and an unemployed Austrian security agent who travels with his step father to the Ukraine in search of work and a sense of life.

Competition "Un Certain Regard"
- La Soledad by Jaime Rosales (€50,000) - In Madrid the destinies of four women meet.

Competition "The Directors' Fortnight"
- Après lui by Gaël Morel (€70,000) - A woman becomes obsessed with her son's best friend after her child dies in a car accident.
- Garage by Lenny Abrahamson (€23,857) – A small town misfit working in an Irish petrol station, comically searches for love, acceptance and the best place to display the motor oil.
- La question humaine by Nicolas Klotz (€25,000) - A human resource manager in a multinational who is losing his mind is told by his manager to psychologically assess the company's general manager.
- Tout est pardonné by Mia Hansen-Løve (€37,498) – When an Austrian couple move to Paris with their young daughter the family splits. Twelve years later, the daughter goes to see her drug addict father in Paris.
- La France by Serge Bozon (€40,345) - During the First World War a French woman receives a letter from her soldier husband serving on the frontline telling her that he is leaving her. She immediately leaves to find him.

Competition "International Critics’ Week"
- El Orfanato by Juan Antonio Bayona (€50,000) – A woman returns to the house where she was raised to transform it into an orphanage. Meanwhile her son makes an invisible friend.
- Voleurs de Chevaux by Micha Wald (€72,500) - A young man who was chased away from his Cossack troop because he let his horse be stolen wants to find his horse again and get revenge.

This year at the Cannes Film Festival, EU Culture and Audiovisual Ministers will attend, together with Commissioner Reding, the special Europe Day on 26 May. Commissioner Reding will make use of this day to debate, together with film business representatives, on how new distribution platforms for films, such as the internet and mobile phones, are changing the creative and economic dimension of Europe's film industry.

Source  MEDIA Programme

More information  Press room - European Commission

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