13/05/2016 - CANNES 2016: More than 1,000 cinemas will celebrate European cinema for the first time on 9 October this year

l-r: Mario Fortin (AQCAE), Domenico Dinoia (FICE), Pedro Barbadillo (Cinearte), Lucia Recalde (head of the MEDIA programme), Francois Aymee (AFCAE), Christian Bräuer (AG Kino - Gilde) and Detlef Rossmann (CICAE)

The CICAE (International Confederation of Art Cinemas) is launching the European Art Cinema Day, which will take place for the first time on 9 October 2016. More than 1,000 cinemas will celebrate the variety of European filmmaking, with previews, children's movies and milestones in cinematic history. Furthermore, the event will be enriched with film talks, receptions and exhibitions, which will testify to arthouse cinemas' commitment to showing a variety of vivid cultural works.

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Germany's Monika Grütters, Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media, will act as a patron for the event. Audrey Azoulay, France's Minister of Culture, has also been suggested to support the initiative. European movies reflect the cultural, social and linguistic diversity of the continent in a very special way, and the idea behind the European Art Cinema Day is to promote this quality while also attracting a younger audience to cinema and arthouse films in particular. “We will show trailers in the participating arthouse cinemas, print posters and postcards, but also collaborate with TV stations,” pointed out Detlef Rossmann, president of CICAE, at the General Assembly held in Cannes.

The event is supported by 11 national arthouse cinema organisations, and the plan is to hold the European Art Cinema Day on the second Sunday in October every year.