European Commission
A Season of Classic Films
Commissioner Mariya Gabriel said:
Cinema is part of our culture and contributes to reinforce bonds between people feeling the same emotion on a movie. The challenge of our strategy #Digital4Culture is to take advantage of the successful connection between digital technologies and culture.
Creative Europe MEDIA is organising for the first time ‘A Season of Classic Films’ as a follow-up on the 2018 European Year of Cultural Heritage and in the context of the Digital4Culture strategy. The initiative, kicking off on 29 June in Bologna and ongoing until the autumn, aims to contribute to building communities around culture, film and heritage.
The events, organised locally by cultural organisations in iconic cultural heritage venues, will reach more than 15.000 people across thirteen countries and presents a good occasion for public debates around our common cultural legacy while highlighting the importance of restoring and preserving film heritage in Europe.
The format will vary in each city, from festivals, concerts and live comments for silent films to debates and social events, but all events will attract broad audiences and help bring young people closer to our rich cultural heritage.
Fritz Lang’s “Metropolis” (1927), Francois Truffaut’s “The 400 blows” (1959) and “Cinema Paradiso” (1988) by Giuseppe Tornatore are just some of the titles that will be screened in venues as emblematic as The Aristotelous Square in Thessaloniki (Greece), the Kilkenny Castle in Ireland or the Piazza Maggiore in Bologna, Italy.
This event is part of the European Commission’s “going local” communication campaign, which shows citizens how European policy is linked to their lives – in this case to the emotions they feel with films – and how by attending a locally-grounded event they can be part of a globally-connected experience across Europe.
As part of this project, Creative Europe MEDIA will also fund the restoration and digitalisation of films to ensure that European film heritage is passed down to future generations.
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News article | 31 October 2019
‘A Season of Classic Films’ organised by Creative Europe closed its first edition on 27 October, on the occasion of the World Day for Audiovisual Heritage, with the screening of ‘Lisbon Story - 25 years’ in the Deutsches Filminstitut & Filmmuseum in Frankfurt.