139 minutes of the film visions about Europe made by 25 European authors.

Peter Greenway/Theo Van Gogh/Jan Troel/Saa Christoffer Boe/Arvo Iho/Aki Kaurismaki/Tony Gatlif/Fatih Akin/Constantine Giannaris/Bela Tarr/Aisling Walsh/Francesca ComenciniLaila Pakalnina/Sharunas Bartas/Andy Bausch/Christos Georgiou/Malgorzata Szumowska/Miguel Hermoso/Kenneth SciclunaTeresa Villaverde/Martin Sulik

Idea

The idea was simple:
Twenty-five countries, twenty-five visions from respected film directors from each of the respective countries that form the enlarged European Community. Each director would be asked to give a personal vision of current or future life in this coming cultural melting pot.
The length of each film was set to five minutes.
The initial idea came from commissioning editor Meinolf Zurhorst from ZDF- Germany/ARTE - France and the project was then conceived together with producer Mikael Olsen from the film production company Zentropa from Denmark.

The ambition

The hope was to have a powerful manifestation of the cultural diversity of Europe as opposed to the idea of globalisation and conformity.
The ambition was also to celebrate the artistic freedom and freedom of expression as this should be a key value of the European community .

The films

The 25 films have become a varied high quality manifestation of European film. It has also become a sensitive body of work that witness past and present times and problems. There are themes that reoccur of borders, immigration, official institutions, power and the lives of ordinary people.
There is looking back but always with a perspective and a strong feeling of the necessity to look ahead to face the oncoming problems.
There are landscapes, cities, bodies, faces, languages, behaviours, rituals and all bear witness to the huge project of living together peacefully with common concerns regarding bureaucratic institutions, the raw power of the governments and the large corporations.
Here we have a unique opportunity to have a heartfelt look at ourselves, at our national traits, our diversities, our similarities, our strengths and weaknesses, thanks to the 25 five different artistic temperaments, and through their vision, challenge our own vision of Europe.

Mikael Olsen
Producer
Zentropa Productions
Filmbyen
DK 2650 Hvidovre
Denmark
+ 45 36 86 87 88
www.zentropa-film.com
www.zentropa.dk

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