13 minutes, 50 years of History

The European Economic and Social Committee marked its 50^th anniversary in 2008 with a series of exceptional events. It asked our agency to produce a historical documentary tracing 50 years of history and its evolving role so that the general public could find out about its activities.

To do so, EU-turn carried out in-depth research to identify the significant stages of the institution’s work and people to interview as well as research of images in the archives. Thus, the film identifies four main periods in the EESC’s chronology: its creation, its first victories, its participation in a more social Europe and the emergence of civil society. These stages guided the writing of the script before the interviews were organised and before the film crew travelled. We chose to highlight EESC personalities: its former presidents, Beatrice Rangoni Machiavelli, Susanne Tiemann, Tom Jenkins, Roger Briesch, Anne Marie Sigmund; members of the current presidency – President Dimitris Dimitriadis and Vice-President Jillian van Turnhout, as well as the first ever Secretary General Jacques Genton and his current counterpart Patrick Venturini. Partners of the EESC also worked on the documentary, including former European Commission President Jacques Delors, former European Parliament President Pat Cox and MEP Íñigo Méndez de Vigo. Each of them was filmed with a black background to create an atmosphere conducive to open exchanges and anecdotes. In the production stage, images were embedded to fit with the selected musical themes. The finished product, a film of 13 minutes in length, shows the EESC’s raison d’être; it winning its legitimacy, the establishment of its expertise and the victory of civil society as a credible partner of the European institutions are stages covered accurately and powerfully.