In keeping with this year's opening film concert, this year's The EUROPA Award Winners is intimately familiar with vampires: Udo Kier played the lead role in ANDY WARHOL'S DRACULA (1974) and portrayed the film architect Albin Grau in SHADOW OF THE VAMPIRE, a homage to Murnau's masterpiece NOSFERATU - A SYMPHONY OF GREY. This year, Kier will be honored with the European Acting Award EUROPA, the festival's most prestigious prize. Kier, who has appeared in more than 280 film and television productions, has worked with renowned stars of independent and arthouse cinema. He made ANDY WARHOL'S DRACULA with Andy Warhol and THE THIRD GENERATION with Rainer Werner Fassbinder. Films by Christoph Schlingensief and Lars von Trier are also closely linked to Kier's unique roles. In Hollywood, he is considered a master of distinctive supporting roles and has earned himself a star on the Walk of Fame.
Kier, who was once a visiting professor of acting theory at the HBK Braunschweig, became the archetype of the Hollywood villain with his piercing blue-green eyes. "Time and again, Udo Kier embodies the antagonist so convincingly that it's hard to believe how courteous and warm-hearted he is in real life," says co-festival director Anke Hagenbüchner-Sobiech. Film festival visitors will have the opportunity to see this for themselves on Saturday, November 16, when the Cologne native invites them to a discussion with journalist and film critic Daniel Kothenschulte. There will also be a selection of five feature-length films and a short film by the winner of the Die EUROPA prize, including Lars von Trier's EUROPA (1991) to mark the occasion.