The European Film Academy has named Beki Probst, Marin Karmitz and Sandra den Hamer as the first recipients of its new Community Award for an Outstanding Contribution to European Film Culture.
The award, paying tribute to âa decisive and continuous contribution over many years to the development and expansion of European film cultureâ, will be presented during the European Film Awards weekend in Athens in January 2027.
The trio will be presented with the award on January 15, on the eve of the main ceremony at the traditional Welcome Night gala dinner, taking place this edition at the Acropolis Museum housing some 4,000 artefacts dating as far back as 1,200 BCE.
Probst is best known internationally as the founder of the Berlinaleâs European Film Market, having entered the cinema world as the founder with her Swiss husband of the Queenie Cinemas in Berne in the 1960s, which grew into a successful chain of arthouse cinemas still existing today.
Born into a Sephardic Jewish family in Istanbul, Probst studied Law and Journalism and worked briefly as a film journalist.
From 1981 to 1988, she was the Berlinale delegate for Turkey and Greece and after initiating Locarnoâs industry program, she was asked by Berlinale Director Moritz de Hadeln to start the European Film Market in 1988 in its current form.
Under her management, which continued into 2014, the EFM became one of the largest and most important international film market in Europe.
She has previously been feted with the Berlinale Camera, the Prix du cinéma Suisse, the French Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres and the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany.
Karmitz is known as the founder of Franceâs independent exhibitor, producer, film financier and sales agent mk2 film. Born in Romania in 1938, Karmitz arrived in France as a refugee with his family in 1947.
After studies at the IDHEC film school in Paris, he worked as assistant director to the filmmakers Jean-Luc Godard, AgnĂšs Varda, Jacques Rozier, Yannick Bellon and Pierre Kast. before directing his first short film, Nuit Noir, Calcutta, based on a screenplay by Marguerite Duras, in 1964.
In 1965, he worked with Samuel Beckett on the adaptation of Comédie. In the same year, the feature was selected to open the Venice International Film Festival and shocked audiences with its avant-garde material.
He launched mk2 Productions in 1967 and made his feature-length directorial debut with Seven Days Somewhere Else (1968), followed by Comrades (1970) and Blow for Blow (1972), which were screened at international festivals.
He opened his first cinema in Paris in 1974 in response to Blow for Blow, about a group of textiles workers who take their factory boss hostage in protest at the work conditions, being shut out of mainstream circuits.
In 40 years, he would produce 108 films and distribute over 350 in theatres, among them Krzysztof Kieslowskiâs Three Colours trilogy, for which he received a nomination for the European Film Awards 1994, twelve films by Claude Chabrol, Alain Resnais, Louis Malle, the Taviani brothers, Theo Angelopoulos, Lucian PintiliĂ©, Gus Van Sant, Ken Loach, Abbas Kiarostami, Hong Sang-Soo, Michael Haneke, Walter Salles and Xavier Dolan.
Den Hamer has an extensive track record in the Dutch film industry.
From 2007 to 2023, she was the director of the Netherlands Filmmuseum in Amsterdam. Under her leadership, the re-named Eye Filmmuseum opened a brand-new museum building and a new collection centre in Amsterdam.
Its eclectic programming includes large retrospectives, international conferences and as well as exhibitions, exploring the work and careers of filmmakers such as Bela Tarr, Apichatpong Weerasethakul and Alex van Warmerdam among many others.
Before that, Sandra den Hamer worked for 23 years at the International Film Festival Rotterdam, including roles as co-ordinator of CineMart and the Hubert Bals Fund. From 1996 to 2007, she directed the festival.
She also served as President of the Board of the Association of European Cinematheques (A.C.E.). From 2023 to 2026. she was appointed interim executive director at the Netherlands Film Fund. Today she chairs the Board of the IDFA Institute and the Gerrit Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam.
Gathering 5,700 members from more than 50 countries across Europe, the European Film Academy oversees the annual European Film Awards, which alternates taking place in its home city of Berlin and another European city, which is Athens this year.
The 39th ceremony marks the second time it is unfolding in its new January slot, after the academy decided to shift it from a long-running December slot to integrate the awards more fully into the wider awards season.
Get our Breaking News Alerts and Keep your inbox happy.
Comments On Deadline Hollywood are monitored. So don't go off topic, don't impersonate anyone, and don't get your facts wrong.
Îdocument.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() );