"Cinema for Peace Gala" celebrates 20th anniversary in Berlin on 24 February 2023

Two decades of bringing together
humanitarians and philanthropists
within the film industry

Berlin – Cinema for Peace Gala is celebrating its 20th edition! In 20 years, Cinema for Peace has supported humanitarian and social topics through the medium of film with artists such as Catherine Deneuve, Leonardo DiCaprio, Ben Affleck, George Clooney, Antonio Banderas, Gerard Butler, Richard Gere, Sir Bob Geldof, Sir Christopher Lee, Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt, Milla Jovovich, Nicole Kidman, Liza Minelli, Sean Penn, Natalie Portman, Julia Roberts, Susan Sarandon, Tim Robbins, Sharon Stone, Charlize Theron, Uma Thurman, Robert De Niro, Liam Neeson, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Adrien Brody, and Lupita Nyongo.
 
The 20th Cinema for Peace Gala will take place on the 24th of February, on the first anniversary of the invasion of Ukraine. The honorary patron of the Gala is the Nobel Peace Prize laureate from Ukraine, Oleksandra Matviichuk. Vitali and Wladimir Klitschko are committee members of Cinema for Peace since the very beginning 20 years ago.
 
Presenters include the long-term supporter and partner of Cinema for Peace Sir Bob Geldof, Pussy Riot, Kweku Mandela, and Oscar-winning actors Edward Norton and Tilda Swinton. Cinema for Peace Honorees in the past include personalities such as George Clooney, Sean Penn, and Angelina Jolie and in this tradition, Cinema for Peace will honor a special guest in 2023. 
 
Filmmakers from all over the world and honorees of Cinema for Peace whose work has served to cast a new focus on the human condition and values, as well as aim to tackle the perception and resolution of global social, political, and humanitarian challenges of our time will be highlighted, including Jasmila Žbanić and Oscar-winning directors such as Ross Kaufmann. Among the honorees is also the film "Navalny" by Daniel Roher, which has a special significance by the fact that Cinema for Peace founder Jaka Bizilj and Cinema for Peace saved Alexei Navalny’s life by evacuating him from Siberia to Berlin.
 
In 20 years Cinema for Peace has hosted the who is who of Hollywood, over 30 heads of state and Nobel Peace Prize laureates, promoted over 500 films, co-produced several films, and was honored by Vaclav Havel for the film "Letter to Anna" about the murdered Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya, hosted the UN Secretary-General, President Mikhail Gorbachev, Nelson Mandela and hundreds of film screenings - including in schools, in parliaments and conflict zones - from the wall in Israel to the demilitarized zone between North and South Korea, saved lives of advocates of democracy, campaigned for the release of imprisoned filmmakers, created the Genocide Film Library in Bosnia with the support of Angelina Jolie and the German foreign office, hosted the global farewell of Mohammed Ali at the London Olympics, and facilitated over 50 million USD for humanitarian causes.