Le Rendez-vous européen des 20 ans de MEDIA !
European Rendez-vous for MEDIA’s 20th Birthday!
TWENTY, A FINE AGE
Celebrating a birthday often leads to bouts of nostalgia, to poetic inspiration rather than mature reflection. I will try to reconcile these extremes by allowing myself a brief glance back into the past, our past!
Indeed I'd like to start by reminding you of the mission assigned to our organisation:
"The aim of the Festival de Cannes, in a spirit of universal friendship and cooperation, is to promote the advancement of the art of the cinema and support the development of the movie industry throughout the world."
The sustainability of our festival, its comforting steadiness, can no doubt be explained by the visionary genius of those who wrote these words, nearly 65 years ago. It is impossible to imagine artistic excellence independently of the support structures that are not just necessary, but actually vital, to creative film-making. Experience has taught us that these support mechanisms must be sustained by political action at the highest level, if we wish to avoid throwing our cultural and artistic future on the mercy of the arbitrary fluctuations of market forces, whose lack of discernment in the matter we see every day…
The Festival de Cannes is especially happy to be associated with the celebration of the 20th anniversary of the MEDIA Programme, which from the beginning, set out to assist and support the finest creative cinema in Europe. To see how they succeeded, you only need to check the list of film-makers who have benefited from the programme: the greatest names in European cinema are there, alongside an impressive number of international awards. And how pleased and proud I feel, as Chairman of the Festival, to see among them the names of film-makers that Cannes has recognised and rewarded, including 7 Palmes d’or and 6 Grand Prix over the last ten years!
There can be no finer illustration of the perfect harmony of our aims.
European cinema needs you, as was made clear only recently through the voices of the industry's most eminent figures, when there was a real fear that the MEDIA Programme might be called into question.
If Europe loves movies, as your wonderful slogan proclaims, then it will continue to offer support, to listen to the voices of its creators and respond to their expectations. This is the Europe that will write the finest pages of our history, through the movie masterpieces that we bequeath to those that follow us.
Happy birthday and long live MEDIA!
Gilles Jacob
PROGRAMME – Monday 16 May 2011
15h30 – 17h30
“The Future MEDIA Programme”
Europe listens to movie professionals
Conference on the theme of MEDIA's first 20 years, preparation of the next MEDIA
Programme and new ways of interacting with audiences.
Panel: “How can we involve the public and develop demand?”
Followed by a debate
Press Conference Room – Palais des Festivals, Level 3
(entry on presentation of professional badge)
17h30 – 19h00
Drinks and closure of the European Rendez-vous for MEDIA's 20th Birthday.
La Terrasse and Salon des Ambassadeurs, Level 4
