17 April 2024
The LUX Audience Award ceremony took place on 16 April in the European Parliament’s hemicycle in Brussels, Belgium. FERA attended the event, after having supported the communications campaign leading up to the evening.
The LUX Audience Award is presented every year by the European Parliament and the European Film Academy, in partnership with Europa Cinemas, the International Network of Cinemas for the Circulation of European Film, and the European Commission.
This year’s nominated films, announced on 1 September 2023 at Venice International Film Festival, were: 20,000 Species of Bees by Estíbaliz Urresola Solaguren (Spain), Fallen Leaves by Aki Kaurismäki (Finland/Germany), On the Adamant by Nicolas Philibert (France/Japan), Smoke Sauna Sisterhood by Anna Hints (Estonia/France/Iceland) and The Teachers’ Lounge by Ilker Çatak (Germany).
For the more than seven months leading up to the ceremony, cinema-lovers across Europe had the possibility to watch the films at free screenings organised by the LUX Award team all over Europe and to rate the films on the online platform.
On 16 April, the Award ceremony was hosted by Sarah Bronkhorst and Dylan Ahern from Dutch group De Kiesmannen, a group boosting political engagement through culture, and accompanied by films scores’ musical interludes (musicians: Olivier Ker Ourio, Kathy Adam & Quentin Dujardin).
In her welcome speech, Evelyn Regner, Vice-President of the European Parliament, emphasised the European Institutions’ important role “in supporting European creativity, diversity and narratives, freedom of expression and speech” and cinema’s crucial role “in solidifying our sense of European identity”, as European elections are approaching and Europe’s democratic values have never been more at stake.
Film directors, actors and screenwriters of the nominated films then took the stage: Estíbaliz Urresola Solaguren began her speech in her native Basque language, one of the oldest European languages spoken by 750.000 people, to stress the importance of linguistic diversity in Europe as a means of free expression and a pivotal factor in the promotion of peace.
The lead actress of Aki Kaurismäki’s Fallen Leaves, Alma Pöysti, thanked European audiences who watched the movie and expressed her gratitude for “seeing how art can resonate with people from different countries” after travelling with the film through Europe and the world.
French director Nicolas Philibert, whose film On the Adamant focuses on patients in a psychiatric hospital, stressed the need to stop marginalising these people who have a lot to teach the rest of society.
His Estonian colleague Anna Hints explained that she wanted to bring across the “courage to share the uncomfortable” and the “courage to hear the uncomfortable”, such as stories of rape survivors like herself, in her documentary Smoke Sauna Sisterhood.
In the end, the 2024 LUX Audience Award went to The Teachers’ Room by German writer and director Ilker Çatak. He was represented by screenwriter (and director) Johannes Duncker, who received the award from Evelyn Regner and MEP Sabine Verheyen.
In his acceptance speech he thanked the entire film team and his co-screenwriter and director Ilker Çatak. In a brief video call, Çatak stressed how proud he was to be European and how grateful he was for the privilege of living and working in Europe. He dedicated the award to “all teachers, past, present and future”, including his director colleagues, whose “films we saw, who are also teachers to us every day”.
LUX Award 2024 ceremony replay: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yv2Bg1oZ8c0