Michael Haneke ist awarded the prestigious Danish Sonning Prize for outstanding contributions to European culture. As Sonning
laureate Michael Haneke follows Orhan Pamuk (2012), Hans Magnus Enzensberger (2010).
Michael Haneke is a completely original director. He explores and renews the language of film, and confronts his audience
with the central existential and social challenges of our time. Haneke pares things right down to the bone. He confronts us
with ourselves, with our relationships with those closest to us, and not least, with our relationships with the others,
both within and outside Europe, says film professor Ib Bondebjerg of the University of Copenhagen.
Professor Bondebjerg, one of those who nominated Haneke for the prize, stresses that he is more than just one of Europes
major film artists. In his art, and in a unique way, Haneke also invites us to look at the Europeans and European culture:
With his films, Michael Haneke makes our modern European culture visible to us without idealising it. He focuses on
the dilemmas and challenges faced by the modern, global world, with all its technology and communications. It is the European
individual who is at the centre.
At DKK one million, the University of Copenhagen's biennial Sonning Prize is the largest cultural award in Denmark.