BPN 1020 EU funded movies win Oscars

The Academy Awards have been handed out again. And again this year EU movies were and actors and actresses were among the prize winners. For the first time in the forty years of the existence of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, all Oscars for the best performances went to foreign actors and actresses. The British actor Daniel Day-Lewis (There Will Be Blood), the French actress Marion Cotillard (playing Edith Piaf in La Vie en Rose), the Spanish actor Javier Bardem (No Country for Old Men) and the Scottish actress Tilda Swinton (Michael Clayton) took the highest accolades of Hollywood for lead performances.

Also for the EU Media programme, the Academy Award ceremony was gratifying, as two European movies received three awards. The Oscar for the best foreign language film went to the Austrian-German co-production "The Counterfeiters" (Die Fälscher). Also "La Vie en Rose" (La Môme) from France was very successful last night, with an Oscar for the best actress in a leading role and one for the best Make-up.

In total four EU movies have been nominated for the Academy Awards. Next to the Austrian-German co-production of "The Counterfeiters" (Die Fälscher), there were three French productions "La Vie en Rose" (La Môme), "Persepolis", and "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly" (Le Scaphandre et le Papillon) entered. These four EU movies received a contribution from the EU MEDIA programme up to a total amount of 2.629.331 euro.

This is the third year running that EU movies have been successful in obtaining Oscars. Last year, the Oscar winner for the best foreign language film came from Germany, with "The Lives of Others" (Das Leben der Anderen), directed by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck. In 2006, the French film "March of the Penguins" (La marche de l’Empereur) won the Oscar for the Best Documentary Film. The Lives of Others was also supported by the EU MEDIA programme with a contribution of over 0,5 million euro, while March of the Penguins received a contribution of 1,13 million euro.

The EU MEDIA 2007 programme is providing 755 million euro to Europe's film industry from 2007-2013. A clear priority is the distribution and promotion of European films outside their originating country, across Europe (almost 65% of the total budget). Under the EU MEDIA Plus and EU MEDIA Training (2001-2006), more than half a billion euros were injected into 8000 projects from over 30 countries.

The EU MEDIA programme's overall objectives are to strengthen the competitiveness of the European audiovisual sector by facilitating access to financing and promoting use of digital technologies, to reflect and respect Europe’s cultural identity and heritage, and to increase the circulation of European audiovisual works inside and outside the European Union.

Blog Posting Number: 1020

Tags: film