FOREWORD...........................................................................................................
Dr Julia Helmke
President of INTERFILM
The presence of Christian juries in Cannes dates back to as early as 1952. OCIC (Organisation
catholique internationale de Cinema), founded 1929 in Belgium, was invited
by the director of the film festival to participate with their own international
jury. Among the first prize winners are films from directors like
Vittorio de Sica, Satyajit Ray, Elia Kazan, Robert Bresson, Federico Fellini...
The International Protestant Film Organisation INTERFILM, founded
in 1955 in Paris, follows suit in 1969 and surprises with its first prize winner: Easy Rider
by Peter Fonda. A road movie that can be seen as secular pilgrimage.
In 1974, one year after the successful “experiment” of the first ecumenical jury at an
A-Festival in Locarno, the director of the Cannes film festival accepts and invites a joint
ecumenical jury to Cannes. The jury consists of three Protestants and three Catholics.
The strong competition leads the jury decision to take considerable time and
effort; they vote time and again yet the result remains unchanged: three to three. The
Catholic jury president Georges Rosetti comes to the rescue of the first Ecumenical
Prize, casting his second presidential vote in favour of Angst essen Seele auf (Fear Eats
the Soul), a social masterpiece by the young German film director Rainer W. Fassbinder.
The next award winner is another young film maker: Werner Herzog with Jeder für sich
und Gott gegen alle (The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser). Before the work of the Ecumenical
Jury concludes, the festival and the jury are shaken by a difficult moment in 1976. After
lengthy deliberation, the jury refuses to select a film for an award because of the violence
seen in many films in the official competition. The Golden Palm winner is Taxi Driver
by Martin Scorcese - it is a “cry” as long-standing INTERFILM jury coordinator Maurice
Terrail puts it and is unprecedented.
Kryzstof Zanussi, winner of a Commendation in 1978, is at the forefront of a very
special and precious era of award winners: A look beyond the “Iron curtain”, interest in
aesthetic topics and spirituality of directors like Andrzej Wajda, Tenguiz Abouladze or
Andrej Tarkowskij. Tarkowskij wins in 1983 (Nosthalgia) and 1986 (Offret) and paves
the way for other prize winners who discover spirituality in cinema like Wim Wenders
in 1984 with Paris, Texas. Other prize-winning films of the 80s like La historia oficial
by the Argentinian Luis Puenzo or A World Apart by the South African director Chris
Menges also reflect the political sentiment and awakening of the time and show the
seismographic power of the Ecumenical Jury.
6 ...................................................................................................JURY ŒCUMENIQUE