“International Directors of the Year” Award
presented to Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne
at MEDIA Salles’ Focus on Europe at Cinema Expo International 2005
Amsterdam, 28 June 2005

Speech by Laura Fumagalli,
Marketing Manager of Arcadia Cinemas, Milan
and co-ordinator of the MEDIA Salles’ Work Group on Digital Cinema

It is an honour for me to present the “International Directors of the Year” Award at Cinema Expo International 2005 to two directors whose work, from La Promesse to The Son, from Rosetta to their most recent work, The Child, has contributed and continues to contribute to the vitality of a European film production capable of originality and depth, with a wealth of ideas and the search for a type of aesthetics able to express them fully.
The proof that Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardennes’ films are born under a lucky star is the attention they receive both at international festivals – we cannot fail to remember the Golden Palms won at Cannes twice in 6 years, first with Rosetta and then with The Child – and in the cinemas where they are screened.
Rosetta, for example, drew over 700,000 spectators into French cinemas in 1999 and La Promesse has been seen in 13 European countries and appreciated in movie theatres in Japan, the USA, Canada, Quebec, Argentina, Uruguay and Israel.
It is therefore a pleasure for us to retrace the main steps in their history as artists, by means of clips from the films that have made them famous and won the appreciation of audiences worldwide: La Promesse, The Son and Rosetta.

AND NOW LET’S ENJOY THEM TOGETHER!

And so, on behalf of MEDIA Salles, promoting the distribution of European films throughout the world, with the support of the European Union’s MEDIA Programme and of the Italian Government, and on behalf of Cinema Expo International, I wish to express our thanks to Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne.
It is thanks to artists of this calibre that European cinema can still claim its independence, showing that it is capable of winning audiences by means of courageous choices that make quality their main focus.
I also thank them – and I know that I do this on your behalf, too – for the gift they have honoured us with.
We now have the great pleasure of watching together a brief sequence from their latest film, The Child, in the form of an advance screening before its release on various European markets. The film will, in fact, be in Belgian and Russian cinemas in September, in French cinemas in October and in The Netherlands in November, after which it will certainly reach many other countries. Now, for us, here is the Golden Palm of the Cannes Festival 2005 – The Child.

ENJOY!