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15th Cinema for Peace Gala on February 15th, 2016
AI WEIWEI TO BE PRESIDENT OF CINEMA FOR PEACE JURY
Gala and ball for valuable films and human rights at the Konzerthaus Berlin
The Chinese artist and filmmaker Ai Weiwei will be the jury president of the 15th Cinema for Peace Award. Together with Daniel Brühl, Pussy Riot and Kweku Mandela he will present the Award for the Most Valuable Movie of the Year with humanitarian and social significance at the Cinema for Peace Award Ceremony on February 15th, 2016. Ai Weiwei will be the head of the jury with almost 150 members, including festival directors, journalists and members of the Golden Globes and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (Oscar) as well as award-winning directors and actors.
Ai Weiwei is one of the most important contemporary artists in the world. He is also working as a documentary filmmaker, but in China his films are censored and cannot be shown. In 2011 Ai Weiwei was arrested and secretly detained for 81 days due to his criticism of the Chinese government and for bringing attention to cases of violation of human rights with his actions and films. After the detention he was placed under house arrest despite massive international protests. Cinema for Peace visited the artist in Beijing whilst under house arrest in 2012 and has been supporting Ai Weiwei with film screenings, talks and events at the Fondation Beyeler at the Art Basel and at the Martin-Gropius-Bau in Berlin. In July 2015 authorities returned his passport to him, enabling him to travel to Germany, where he started his tenure as a guest professor at the Berlin University of the Arts (UdK) this October.
Celebrating its anniversary, the gala, for the first time, will be followed by a ball. “Even in difficult times as these, we should promote human rights and justice in the spirit of joyous gratitude”, says the organizer. On the initiative of Jan Josef Liefers there will be a Syrian refugee band will be among the presenting artists. The band will be supported by German actress Katja Riemann, among others. In 2013, Liefers, together with Cinema for Peace, had travelled to the Syrian front in Aleppo in order to deliver milk powder to infants and to campaign for a No-Fly-Zone aimed at stopping the bombings of civilians.
Over the past 15 years Cinema for Peace has raised more than 10 million Euros, organized hundreds of film screenings and realized campaigns against war with artists like George Clooney, for the environment with Leonardo DiCaprio and for refugees with Angelina Jolie. The initiative has produced and funded films, facilitated the construction of a cinema in Palestine, spread a message against Anti-Semitism together with German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, created a Genocide film library and founded the initiative ‘Help Haiti Home’ for Sean Penn. The 2015 documentary film ‘The Voices of Srebrenica’, produced by Cinema for Peace, with the support of the German Foreign Office, was shown in Potocari to thousands of viewers on the 20th anniversary of the atrocity. On the anniversary of the Cinema for Peace initiative, Sir Bob Geldof congratulated Cinema for Peace stating that “there are many important film festivals in the world, but only one Cinema for Peace Gala. Berlin should be very proud of this unique achievement”.
This year, the film ‘SELMA’, among others, was honored in Berlin and Los Angeles by Cinema for Peace as well as by the family of Nelson Mandela. The events were attended by the author and initiator of the Oscar-nominated film ‘SELMA’, Paul Webb, and 103-year-old Amelia Boynton Robinson, who was the one to persuade Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to come to Selma and start the Civil Rights march in 1965, and who was nearly beaten to death on the bridge in front of rolling TV cameras. The images of her severe beatings, which were broadcast nationwide, led to the change of U.S. segregation laws under U.S.-President Lyndon B. Johnson and changed the face of American society forever. Amelia sang a Gospel song and held her last public speech at the Cinema for Peace event in L.A.. Just a month later, shortly after joining President Obama on the historical bridge, Amelia passed away. The founder of Cinema for Peace, Jaka Bizilj, said, “we want to highlight inspiring messages and personalities like these. In the upcoming year there is a series of films whose missions and heroes we will celebrate”.
In recent years, Cinema for Peace has been represented as a member of the Clinton Global Initiative with film screenings at the World Economic Forum as well as with events at the Munich Security Conference. Over the past 15 years, founder Jaka Bizilj has repeatedly advised governments and heads of states with humanitarian questions and served as an advisor of the International Criminal Court at the UN Security Council. UN General Secretary Ban Ki-moon congratulated Cinema for Peace stating that “every time you and our friends from the artist community get involved in promoting human rights and justice, you help the United Nations in its peace mission.”
About the Cinema for Peace Initiative
The global Cinema for Peace Initiative was established with representatives from film, politics, media, economy and philanthropy as a reaction the events of September 11th, 2001 and in order to fight humanitarian grievances, social injustice and human rights violations. Cinema for Peace has been supported by artists such as Angelina Jolie, Nicole Kidman, Julia Roberts, Charlize Theron, Leonardo DiCaprio, George Clooney, Sean Penn, Richard Gere, Ben Affleck and Brad Pitt, as well as renowned personalities such as UN General Secretary Ban Ki-moon, Nobel Prize Lauriet Michail Gorbatschow, Oprah Winfrey, Bill und Hillary Clinton, Muhammad Ali, Bischof Desmond Tutu, Bono, Bob Geldof, the Dalai Lama and Nelson Mandela.
Through its different platforms, approximately 10 billion media contacts have been reached and more than 10 million Euro raised. The main event of the foundation is its annual Cinema for Peace Gala in Berlin, which grants awards and offers a campaign platform for the most valuables films in the world. The humanitarian involvement of filmmaking and valuable productions that handle the most difficult current issues and crises of our time are honored during the gala and other Cinema for Peace events in Cannes, New York, Los Angeles and Africa, where they are made accessible for large audiences.
For further information: www.cinemaforpeace.com
About the Cinema for Peace Foundation
The Cinema for Peace Foundation was founded in Berlin in 2008 in order to support the work of the Cinema for Peace Initiative. The foundations goal is to combat social grievances and injustice and promote peace with the help of the cinematic medium.
The Cinema for Peace Foundation provides support through the funding, production and worldwide distribution and promotion of film projects, which focus on humanitarian and justice issues, such as the prevention of disease, terrorism, ecocide, war, poverty and violation of human rights.
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For further information: www.cinemaforpeace-foundation.com
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Chatelin Bruno 
