(kus) During a ceremony on Saturday, September 2, the Binding Cultural Foundation awarded the 2017 Binding Cultural Prize, worth 50,000 euros, to the Asta Nielsen Cinema Library. The honour took place in the presence of Frankfurt's Lord Mayor Peter Feldmann in the Kaisersaal of the Römer. Rosely Schweizer, representing the Oetker family of entrepreneurs, presented the award to the Kinothek's co-founders Karola Gramann and Heide Schlüpmann.
With Kinothek Asta Nielsen, founded in 1999, the Board of Trustees of the Binding Cultural Foundation has chosen a Frankfurt-based association that is committed to preserving film history in all its diversity. The Kinothek Asta Nielsen rescues, with small means and considerable effort, film art that falls through the cracks of current film viewing and is in danger of being forgotten.
The association is primarily dedicated to the film work of women in history and the present, documenting it and making it experienceable again in the cinema. This includes films from the early days of cinema and experimental films. The Kinothek Asta Nielsen has built up its own collection of Super 8 and 16mm films and produces authoritative publications on film history, such as the two-volume standard work on its namesake Asta Nielsen. Thanks to their enormous expertise, their co-founders Karola Gramann and Heide Schlüpmann are sought-after experts on film art throughout Europe.
With all these activities, the Kinothek Asta Nielsen is making an invaluable contribution to saving film heritage and will therefore be awarded the Binding Culture Prize this year, according to the jury statement chaired by Professor Dr. Felix Semmelroth.
Verena Lueken, film and literature critic of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, held the ceremonial laudation: "Cinema is an art form and at the same time a cultural technique. Not to lose it in the world of digital image abundance in which we live, as the Kinothek Asta Nielsen does, is by no means a backward-looking longing, but also a piece of resistance alongside the desire. It's an attitude that advocates a certain quality of audience experience."
"I am particularly pleased that the competent jury has chosen the Kinothek Asta Nielsen for this year's award; because in doing so, the Board of Trustees of the Binding Cultural Foundation has chosen a Frankfurt association that has been working since its founding in 1999 to make film history accessible in all its diversity, to keep it accessible, to present it and to celebrate it. With little resources and considerable effort, it rescues a piece of film history that is in danger of being lost in the mainstream of historiography and restoration efforts," said Lord Mayor Peter Feldmann, praising the jury's decision.
Feldmann called the work of the Kinothek Asta Nielsen an "excellent example of how networked cultural work works and what great things can be put in place" when synergies are used.
The award ceremony also featured a short cinematic revue entitled "The Nielsen Drinks", accompanied on the grand piano by Elvira Plenar. With this important promotion of the cultural scene in Frankfurt and the Rhine-Main region, the tradition-rich Binding brewery underlines its close ties to its home region
