The history of cinema in Poland is almost as long as the history of cinematography, and it has universally recognized achievements, even though Polish films tend to be less commercially available than films from several other European nations.
Ernst Wilhelm "Wim" Wenders is a German filmmaker, playwright, author, and photographer. He is a major figure in New German Cinema. Among the honors he has received are prizes from the Cannes, Venice and Berlin film festivals. He has also received a BAFTA Award and been nominated for three Academy Awards and a Grammy Award.
Wings of Desire is a 1987 romantic fantasy film written by Wim Wenders, Peter Handke and Richard Reitinger, and directed by Wenders. The film is about invisible, immortal angels who populate Berlin and listen to the thoughts of its human inhabitants, comforting the distressed. Even though the city is densely populated, many of the people are isolated or estranged from their loved ones. One of the angels, played by Bruno Ganz, falls in love with a beautiful, lonely trapeze artist, played by Solveig Dommartin. The angel chooses to become mortal so that he can experience human sensory pleasures, ranging from enjoying food to touching a loved one, and so that he can discover human love with the trapeze artist.
Theodoros "Theo" Angelopoulos was a Greek filmmaker, screenwriter and film producer. He dominated the Greek art film industry from 1975 on, and Angelopoulos was one of the most influential and widely respected filmmakers in the world. He started making films in 1967. In the 1970s he made a series of political films about modern Greece.
New German Cinema is a period in German cinema which lasted from 1962 to 1982, in which a new generation of directors emerged who, working with low budgets, and influenced by the French New Wave and Italian Neorealism, gained notice by producing a number of "small" motion pictures that caught the attention of art house audiences. These filmmakers included Percy Adlon, Harun Farocki, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Peter Fleischmann, Werner Herzog, Alexander Kluge, Ulli Lommel, Wolfgang Petersen, Volker Schlöndorff, Helma Sanders-Brahms, Werner Schroeter, Hans-Jürgen Syberberg, Margarethe von Trotta and Wim Wenders. As a result of the attention they garnered, they were able to create better-financed productions which were backed by the big US studios. However, most of these larger films were commercial failures and the movement was heavily dependent on subsidies. By 1977, 80% of a budget for a typical German film was ensured by a subsidy.
Agnieszka Holland is a Polish film and television director and screenwriter, best known for her political contributions to Polish cinema. She began her career as an assistant to directors Krzysztof Zanussi and Andrzej Wajda, and emigrated to France shortly before the 1981 imposition of the martial law in Poland.
István Szabó is a Hungarian film director, screenwriter, and opera director.
The European Film Awards have been presented annually since 1988 by the European Film Academy to recognize excellence in European cinematic achievements. The awards are given in 19 categories, of which the most important is the Best Film. They are restricted to European cinema and European producers, directors and actors. The awards were officially also called the "Felix Awards" until 1997, in reference to the former award's trophy statuette, which was replaced by a feminine statuette.
The Thessaloniki International Film Festival (TIFF) is a film festival held every November in Thessaloniki, Greece. It is organized by the Thessaloniki Film Festival under the auspices of the Greek Ministry of Culture. It features international competition sections, and its program includes tributes to major filmmakers and national cinemas, as well as sidebar events such as masterclasses, exhibitions, live concerts and workshops. In addition to TIFF, the Thessaloniki Film Festival holds the annual Thessaloniki Documentary Festival (TDF) in March.
The International Short Film Festival Oberhausen, founded in 1954, is one of the oldest short film festivals in the world. Held in Oberhausen, it is one of the major international platforms for the short form. The festival holds an International Competition, a German Competition, an International Children's and Youth Film Competition, the MuVi Award for best German music video, and, since 2009, the NRW Competition for productions from the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia.
The European Parliament LUX Prize, commonly known as the LUX Prize or LUX Film Prize, was a prize given to a competing film by the European Parliament. Introduced in 2007, the prize is named after the Latin word for "light", lux.
The International Film Festival of the Art of Cinematography Camerimage is a festival that celebrates and awards cinematography and cinematographers. The festival is held in Toruń, Poland at the end of November every year. It spans the course of one week, with multiple events at one time.
Mathilde Bonnefoy is a French film editor and director who was nominated for an ACE Eddie Award for the editing of the film Run Lola Run (1998) and who won the award for editing the documentary Citizenfour (2014). She and her husband Dirk Wilutzky additionally served as producers of Citizenfour with its director Laura Poitras, and the three received the 2014 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.
Bergman Week is an annual event organized by the Bergmancenter on the small island Fårö in Sweden. Ingmar Bergman moved to the island in the 1960s and the Bergman Week is a celebration of his artistry, with films, lectures and conversations. Guests in 2012 were among others Belgian directors Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, author Peter Birro, director Suzanne Osten and opera singer Håkan Hagegård. Guests at the Bergman Week 2011 were among others directors Andrey Zvyagintsev and István Szabó as well as Swedish authors Henning Mankell and Sara Stridsberg.
The Hellenic Film Academy (HFA) is an initiative of a group of Greek filmmakers. HFA presents the annual Hellenic Film Academy Awards ceremony, awarding the best films of Greek cinema of the last year.
Gian-Piero Ringel is a German producer.
The 29th European Film Awards were presented on 10 December 2016 in Wrocław, Poland. The ceremony is one of a number of events to take place in Wrocław as the city is a 2016 European Capital of Culture, along with San Sebastián. The nominations and winners were selected by more than 2,500 members of the European Film Academy.
Michael Downey is an Irish-British film producer. He is the co-founder and CEO of Film and Music Entertainment and as of 2020 the Chairman of the European Film Academy.
The 32nd European Film Awards were presented in Berlin, Germany, on 7 December 2019.
The 33rd European Film Awards was scheduled to be presented in Reykjavík, Iceland on 12 December 2020. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic the awards were announced in a virtual event online.
