'It's the source of cinema': German filmmaker Wim Wenders honoured at Lyon's Festival Lumière

Decorated German filmmaker Wim Wenders was awarded the 15th Prix Lumière at this year's Festival Lumière in Lyon, southeast France. This unique prize pays tribute to the greatest names in cinema.

Following in the footsteps of Clint Eastwood, Ken Loach, Quentin Tarantino, Martin Scorsese, Jane Fonda, and Tim Burton among others, the director of Wings of Desire, Paris, Texas and Buena Vista Social Club was honoured for his contribution to cinema.

The film and documentary maker is also a talented photographer. Wenders has always reflected on the meaning of images, and he told Euronews that winning the Prix Lumière is an apotheosis.

"The symbolism is already in the name, Lumière. It's the source of cinema," Wim Winders told Euronews. "Light is so much the essence of life that this Prize is highly symbolic, and gives me a joy greater than for any other prize I’ve received previously."

After Pina, his documentary on the great German dancer Pina Bausch, Wenders pays tribute to Anselm Kiefer - one of Germany's greatest living artists - in the documentary Anselm, which hits cinemas this autumn. Wenders is a filmmaker without artistic boundaries.

"For me, cinema has never been a national story," he revealed. "I discovered it in Paris, I wanted to be a painter and I discovered cinema and it changed my life.

"I'm a convinced pro-European. It was the greatest emotion of my life to have this idea of a Europe where there will always be peace, and never war again, where we leave nationalism behind us [...] And we've seen what that leads to, so it's a great catastrophe, this loss of memory."

Wim Wenders is a filmmaker without borders. He shot his latest film Perfect Days in Japan. It won the Prize of the Ecumenical Jury at the Cannes Film