In order to facilitate the circulation of films across Europe, Europa Cinemas supported the European Parliament for the creation of this new price, the Prize LUX, given for the first time on October 24, 2007


The Turkish-German co production Auf der anderen Seite (On the Edge of Heaven) won the first edition of the European Parliament LUX (light) Prize for European cinema.
The German Actress Hanna Schygulla received the trophy from EP President Hans-Gert Pöttering in front of the Members of the European Parliament, and representatives from the other films in competition. MEPs voted for the winning film from a short-list of three.

Hans Gert Pöttering said: "Today, we are experiencing a premiere: 50 years after signing the Treaty of Rome, the European Parliament is awarding for the first time the newly created cinema prize "LUX".
With this prize we want to award annually a film that raises attention to current social questions that affect our continent and highlights European Integration especially. Furthermore, the award is supposed to highlight the richness of linguistic diversity within the European Union and to support the artistic production of the cinema sector. We are sending a strong signal for multilingualism and aim to breakthrough the logic of economic efficiency that often results in lack of translations in some countries of the EU. We want to work equally with all official languages, so that every European citizen can watch the film in his/her own language. The film prize winner will not receive an amount of money, but it will be subtitled in the 23 official languages of the EU by providing copy in 35 mm (…)."

The two others films in competition were:
-4 luni, 3 saptamini si 2 zile (4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days), by Cristian Mungiu
-Belle toujours, by Manoel de Oliveira

Source: <b>European Parliament</b>