The Municipality of Morges awards the 2024 Cultural Distinction to Chahnaz Sibaï, director of the Odéon cinema in Morges. This year’s Artistic Encouragement Prize goes to visual artist Anouchka Perez. The awards will be presented at a ceremony on November 28.
Chahnaz Sibaï (left) and Anouchka Perez.
© Maud Guye-Vuillème / Charles de Senarclens
The 2024 Cultural Distinction from the City of Morges, endowed with 4,000 francs, is awarded to Chahnaz Sibaï, director of Morges cinema for almost fifteen years. Chahnaz Sibaï’s entire career is dedicated to the dissemination of the 7th Art in Switzerland: after her beginnings at the Lausanne cinema ticket offices, she rose through the ranks to become responsible for the promotion of Swiss cinema in French-speaking Switzerland for REGIO Distrib (newly Cinéforom, Fondation romande pour le cinéma), supported by the Federal Office of Culture.
Cinema for all audiences
Arriving in Morges in 2010, Chahnaz Sibaï took over and modernized the Odéon, saving it from closure and thus allowing the population to benefit from quality independent and local cinema. She has since promoted cinematographic creation, by regularly organizing screenings with Swiss directors and international artists. Teeming with projects, the woman who is also a member of the Consultative Commission for Cultural Affairs is an essential Morgian personality for the city’s culture. The City of Morges wishes to honor with this prize the limitless commitment of Chahnaz Sibaï for many years and her rich self-taught career. This is the first time that a Cultural Distinction has been awarded to the field of cinema.
Artistic encouragement prize for Anouchka Perez
The City of Morges also rewards Anouchka Perez by giving her the Artistic Encouragement Prize, also worth 4,000 francs. An artist from Morges, living in Reverolle, Anouchka Perez is a graduate of the Valais School of Design and High School of Art. She has exhibited in Morges, at Espace 81 and at the Alexis Forel museum, but also in Lausanne, Geneva and Saint-Maurice. His works can combine words, wood, linocut or embroidery to express questions about language, its meaning and its consequences. The awareness of inequalities and the search for local solidarity present in the works of Anouchka Perez, the quality of her exhibitions as well as her great attachment to the city of Morges convinced the Municipality to reward her with the Artistic Encouragement Prize.
Public awards ceremony
The Municipality congratulates the two distinguished artists and thanks them for their contribution to the city’s influence. She will present the prizes to them during a public ceremony at the Odéon cinema, on November 28, 2024 at 6:30 p.m. Entrance is free, but reservations required at morges.ch/ceremonie-culturelle.
