The CEI Award for outstanding contributions to filmmaking in Central and Eastern Europe was given to the renowned Slovak film director, Dušan Hanák on 25 January 2011. The CEI Award focuses on special merits in the promotion of the dialogue of cultures as well as the preservation of cultural identities.
Dušan Hanák was born in 1938 in Bratislava. He started to make feature films after the Soviets invaded Czechoslovakia in August 1968. Most of them were banned from screening immediately after their completion. However, when the communist regime fell in 1989, the director's works won acclaim and awards at various international festivals. His filmography includes 322 (1969), The Pictures of the Old World (1972), Rose Dreams (1976), I Love, You Love (1980), Silent Joy (1985), and Paper Heads (1995). The Trieste Film Festival has established itself as a point of reference and excellence for the film industry in Central and Eastern Europe. This year, the festival was opened by the Academy Award winner, Danis Tanović, who won an Oscar in 2002 with No Man’s Land. Thirty young directors and scriptwriters from Central and Eastern European cinema schools took part in the Festival’s Eastweek project sponsored by the CEI to attend to attend seminars and special showings. Cooperation among film production companies and the funding opportunities available at national, regional and European level was the focus of another CEI co-funded initiative, the "When East meets West" Project. www.triestefilmfestival.it
from left: film director, Dušan Hanák and CEI Secretary General, Gerhard Pfanzelter