Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Europe's LUX prize goes to When We Leave


Mavi Boncuk |

Feo Aladag’s When We Leave (Die Fremde) has won the 2010 European Parliament LUX Cinema prize worth 90,000 Euros.

The film, which is this year’s German foreign-language Oscar submission, tells the story of a Turkish woman (Sibel Kekilli) [1] trying to make a new life in Berlin after escaping an abusive husband in Istanbul. The European Parliament’s president Jerzy Buzek presented the award to Aladağ at a special ceremony today (24 Nov). She is the first female director to be shortlisted since the award began in 2007.

The award carries a cash prize of 90,000 Euros towards subtitling the film in all official EU languages, adapting the original version for visually- or hearing-impaired people and producing a 35mm print per EU Member State or for the DVD release. The LUX Prize is awarded to films that illustrate the founding values of European identity, explore cultural diversity or contribute insights to the EU integration debate.

This year’s other finalists were Filippos Tsitos’ Akadimia Platonos and Olivier Masset-Depasse’s Illégal.
[1] Sibel Kekilli (born 16 June 1980 in Heilbronn, West Germany) is a German actress of Turkish origin, who gained public attention after starring in the 2004 film Gegen die Wand (Head-On). She has twice won the highest German movie award Lola.

Apr 24, 2010
But the star of the evening was Sibel Kekilli, who won the best actress Lola for Feo Aladag's "Fremde/When We Leave." Kekilli, who won the Lola for her debut in Fatih Akin's "Head-On" (2004) had nearly vanished from the German film ...
Oct 22, 2010
The jury about Die Fremde: “This touching story about a turkish young woman (Sibel Kekilli) in Berlin is about the new neighborhoods in which we live, in the same world, at the same place, and yet not at the same time. ...
Apr 30, 2010
Best Actress in a Narrative Feature Film – Sibel Kekilli as Umay in When We Leave (Die Fremde), directed and written by Feo Aladag. (Germany). Sponsored by Delta Air Lines. Winner receives two BusinessElite ticket vouchers for anywhere ...

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