Christoph Schlingensief Receives Posthumous Konrad Wolf Prize for Burkina Faso Opera Village

The Konrad Wolf Prize, awarded annually by the Akademie der Künste in Berlin, has been given posthumously to German artist Christoph Schlingensief for his Opera Village project in Burkina Faso. Schlingensief, who died in 2010, collaborated with architect Diébédo Francis Kéré to establish the village in 2010 as a creative hub for cultural exchange and workshops. The entire prize money will fund film education for youth at the village, supporting their use of film as an expressive medium. This award honors political filmmaker Konrad Wolf and has previously recognized filmmakers like Lars von Trier, Agnes Varda, Avi Mograbi, and Ken Loach. A review of an exhibition centered on Schlingensief's work, titled 'The Alien Within – A Living Laboratory of Western Society,' was published in March 2015 at Malmö Konsthall.