The LUX Film Prize finalists will be showcased in 24 languages in the 28 member states of the European Union in order to disseminate European co-productions within the continent during this year’s edition of the LUX Film Days. The finalists are My Life as a Courgette by Claude Barras, Toni Erdmann by Maren Ade and As I Open My Eyes by Leyla Bouzid. This European Parliament initiative will allow as many European citizens as possible to benefit from the diversity and richness of European cinema.
As I Open My Eyes (the first feature film by young Tunisian director Bouzid, which tells the story of Farrah, a young Tunisian girl and her struggle with the government as she sings highly critical songs with her rock band), My Life as a Courgette (a Swiss-French animated film that follows Zucchini, a little boy who finds himself alone at an orphanage after his mother’s death) and the German-Austrian- Romanian comedy Toni Erdmann (which sees a daughter reunite with her father in order to overcome their tricky relationship) will thus be the three finalists travelling through more than 50 European cities from November 2016 to January 2017.
The locations where these three features have been already and will be showcased are Austria (Vienna), the Netherlands (Leiden), Estonia (Tallinn), Sweden (Stockholm), France (Clermont-Ferrand, Paris and Marseille), Slovenia (Nova Gorica, Ljubljana, Krsko and Ptuj), Germany (Berlin, Essen and Munich), Italy (Salerno and Rome), the Slovak Republic (Bratislava), Finland (Helsinki, Tampere, Kuopio, Oulu, Abo and Joensuu), the UK (Leeds and Edinburgh), Romania (Cluj-Napoca, Bucharest and Targu Mures), Cyprus (Nicosia), Ireland (Dublin), Belgium (Brussels), Hungary (Budapest), Luxembourg (Luxembourg City), Spain (Barcelona and Madrid), Croatia (Zagreb), Latvia (Riga), Poland (Wroclaw and Warsaw), Lithuania (Vilnius, Kaunas and Panevezys), Portugal (Porto) and the Czech Republic (Brno). You can check out the agenda in its entirety here.
During the LUX Film Days, the LUX Film Prize will promote the active participation of the European audience by inviting those who watched the films in competition for the LUX Film Prize to take part in a vote for the Audience Mention. The winning film, as chosen by the audience, will then be announced and awarded the LUX Film Prize Audience Mention at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival. Participants may also be selected to personally unveil the Audience Mention winner in July 2017.
