Hanna Schygulla, the most prominent German actress of the New German Cinema, who is to receive the Golden Alexander for her motion picture achievements by the 55th Thessaloniki International Festival gave a press conference on Thursday, November 6 in the context of the TIFF.

This year, the Festival is paying tribute to the emblematic artist who was welcomed at Thessaloniki by Festival director Dimitri Eipides. Mr. Eipides called Ms Schygulla “a screen icon” and added that she “excelled both as the muse of Rainer Werner Fassbinder and as a singer. She is a living legend of European cinema, a timeless, charming personality.”

Moderator Elena Christopoulou opened the press conference quoting a line from Fassbinder’s The Marriage of Maria Braun, the film that won Schygulla the award for Best Actress at the 1979 Berlin International Film Festival: “ I am who I am.”

“I almost never knew exactly who I am. To be honest I did not even want to know who I was”, commented Schygulla.

Asked about the surprises cinema hides, Ms Schygulla replied: “We always need to be on the lookout for surprises, because they can awake us from our half-asleep state. We should always search for wonders. Life is wonderful and I do not mean that in the sense of la vie en rose.”

Ms Schygulla also commented the current sociopolitical situation in Greece and the world: “I imagine that Greece will have to rise from the ashes like a phoenix. Today, we talk a lot about preventing the collapse of old buildings. We should do the same with our mindset and value system — we must not allow them to collapse. All of us belong to the same body: Europe, the world, the human race. We have so much in common, despite our differences. In Germany, we have reached a state of satiation. We make products the world does not need. This cannot go on for much longer. We don’t need all those cars. The economy is incompatible with environmental awareness. Manufacturing weapons is a horrible way to make a profit — it is like profiting from death. Our minds are also weary and tired by everything becoming faster. We should teach our minds how to relax. Satiation in Germany is not a healthy state — collapse will ensue.”

Ms Schygulla said she is not very familiar with Greek cinema, but praised Penny Panayotopoulou’s Hard Goodbyes: My Father: “It has been some years since I watched this film, which is based on the real life experiences of the director, but is narrated through the eyes of the protagonist, and I find that extremely interesting.”

The tribute to the work of Hanna Schygulla is organized in collaboration with Goethe-Institut Thessaloniki.