Atom Egoyan Awarded $1 Million Dan David Prize

ATOM EGOYAN AWARDED $1 MILLION DAN DAVID PRIZE
by Andrew Gnerre

MovieMaker Magazine
egoyan_awarded_1_million_dan_david_prize_20080303/

March 3 2008
NY

On February 11, 2008 the winners of the annual Dan David Prize were
announced. In addition to Al Gore and Tom Stoppard, this year’s
group of prize laureates who have had "an outstanding scientific,
technological, cultural or social impact on our world" included
moviemaker Atom Egoyan. Writer-director Egoyan shares the $1 million
"Past" award with Stoppard and author Amos Oz.

The Dan David Prize has been awarded annually since 2000 by businessman
and philanthropist Dan David. Each year specific fields are chosen
within the temporal categories of Past, Present and Future.

Born in Egypt to Egyptian-Armenian parents, Egoyan has been making
movies for more than 25 years. His most widely recognized film,
The Sweet Hereafter starring Ian Holm and Sarah Polley, garnered
him two Academy Award nominations for Best Director and Best Orignal
Screenplay.

While this somber study of a town’s struggle to deal with a fatal
school bus crash might be his most famous work, Egoyan was chosen
for The Dan David Prize for his works depicting Armenian history
and culture, namely his 2002 film Ararat. The film, one of the only
movies ever made to breach the subject of the Armenian genocide,
is a meditation not only on the effects of the atrocities claimed
by the Armenian people, but also on the struggle to represent such
horrors through art, as the film focuses on the making of a film
about the genocide.

All of the prize laureates will be honored at an awards ceremony held
at Tel Aviv University on May 19, 2008.

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