Schlingensief's opera village to live on
Christoph Schlingensief is posthumously honored with the Konrad Wolf Prize. The award is named after a film director and long-time president of the Academy of Arts of the GDR.
Konrad Wolf was a political filmmaker, according to the citation. For him, it was not only important what films showed, but also what they achieved. For this reason, the prize "in its intellectual dimension should go to a film artist who never allowed his autobiographical stubbornness and political independence to be driven out of him".
The prize money will go to the opera village in Burkina Faso, specifically "to support the project there to help young people to adopt the cinematic as a means of expression". The prize was accepted by Aino Laberenz, Managing Director of Operndorf Afrika.
The Operndorf Afrika project was launched by Schlingensief in Burkina Faso at the beginning of 2010 as a place for international encounters. The government of Burkina Faso has made 20 hectares of land near the capital Ouagadougou available for this purpose. The village, designed by Burkinabe architect Francis Kéréhat, borders on a sculpture park that has been in existence for over 25 years.
