Dear Festival Director, or should I say, dear Mikel, dear Claude and Claude-Eric, dear friends

Although I cannot be with you in San Sebastián this year I would like, through this message, to give you a few words of friendship and admiration.
Firstly, friendship and admiration for this Festival which is a great spotter of talents both from Europe and from distant horizons. The festival is open to the city and to its inhabitants, providing a place of expression for cinema students and promoting coproductions between different areas of Europe. In short, it is a festival which loves the cinema and a festival which I myself love!
Secondly, friendship and admiration for Europa Cinemas and its heart and soul, Claude Miller and Claude-Eric Poiroux. Over the years Europa Cinemas has become an irreplaceable feature of the European cinematographic landscape. Europa Cinemas is making a significant contribution to the current increase in the audiences population of European films in Europe and in several countries in the world, with its cinemas taking risks, gambling on quality, audience education and cultural diversity. The Prize awarded today to Claude Miller and Claude-Eric Poiroux will, I know, be shared with the hundreds of Europa Cinemas network exhibitors which, day after day, provide me with good cinema. It is, moreover, on Europa Cinemas screens that I discover the films selected in San Sebastián, in particular films from South America. I am happy and proud that the European Union, through the MEDIA programme, supports Europa Cinemas.
To Claude and Claude-Eric,
Thank you and congratulations on winning this Award!