European Film Academy Opens Vote for People’s Choice Award

The People’s Choice Award allows film fans across Europe to elect their favourite film and win a trip to the European Film Awards Ceremony. Every year, when the European Film Academy invites its members, Europe’s greatest film stars, directors, producers, cinematographers, screenwriters, designers, nominees and winners, to attend the European Film Awards, the People’s Choice Award sheds a spotlight on the people films are made for - the audience.

Winners in the past have included films like Pedro Almodóvar’s VOLVER, Roberto Benigni’s LA VITA E BELLA, Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s AMÉLIE, Fatih Akin’s HEAD-ON, and Danny Boyle’s SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE.

From 1 September on, film fans can cast their vote on the official website

www.europeanfilmawards.eu

and win a chance to attend the 23rd European Film Awards on Saturday, 4 December 2010, in the Estonian capital Tallinn on the Baltic coast!

NOMINATED ARE:
AGORA
written by Alejandro Amenábar & Mateo Gil
directed by Alejandro Amenábar
produced by Alvaro Augustín & Fernando Bovaira

BAARÍA
written and directed by Giuseppe Tornatore
produced by Giampaolo Letta & Mario Spedaletti

AN EDUCATION
written by Nick Hornby
directed by Lone Scherfig
produced by Finola Dwyer & Amanda Posey

FLICKAN SOM LEKTE MED ELDEN (The Girl Who Played With Fire)
written by Jonas Frykberg
directed by Daniel Alfredson
produced by Sören Staermose

THE GHOST WRITER
written by Robert Harris & Roman Polanski
directed by Roman Polanski
produced by Robert Benmussa, Alain Sarde & Roman Polanski

KICK-ASS
written by Jane Goldman & Matthew Vaughn
directed by Matthew Vaughn
produced by Matthew Vaughn, Brad Pitt, Kris Thykier, Adam Bohling, Tarquin Pack & David Reid

MINE VAGANTI (Loose Cannons)
written by Ferzan Ozpetek & Ivan Cotroneo
directed by Ferzan Ozpetek
produced by Domenico Procacci

MR. NOBODY
written and directed by Jaco van Dormael
produced by Philippe Godeau

LE PETIT NICOLAS (Little Nicholas)
written by Laurent Tirard & Grégoire Vigneron
directed by Laurent Tirard
produced by Eric Jehelmann

SOUL KITCHEN
written by Fatih Akin & Adam Bousdoukos
directed by Fatih Akin
produced by Fatih Akin & Klaus Maeck

MEDIA PARTNERS:
ADN (Spain) * ARTE * www.cinemagia.ro(Romania) * Cinemania (Spain) * www.cineuropa.org * Diena (Latvia) * De Filmkrant (the Netherlands) * IFTN (Ireland) * www.kinema.sk (Slovakia) * Nädal (Estonia) * www.nettavisen.no (Norway) * NTV Plus (Russia) * La Rivista del Cinematografo (Italy) * El séptimo vicio (Spain) * www.stopklatka.pl (Poland) * STUDIO Ciné Live (France) * Tea Moderna /  Tin Shema (FYR Macedonia) * Vikend (Slovenia) * VOX mozimagazin (Hungary) *

Ernst & Young, one of the leading global professional services firms, continues to act as Official Tabulator, endorsing the voting procedures and confirming the winner.

Berlin, 1 September 2010

The European Film Academy (EFA) and the Locarno International Film Festival congratulate the

Locarno Short Film Nominee for the European Film Awards 2010
DIARCHIA (Diarchy)
by Ferdinando Cito Filomarino
Italy 2009, 20 min., fiction

The film is now nominated for the award European Film Academy Short Film 2010. It was selected by the festival’s international jhort film jury which was made up of  directors Lisandro Alonso (Argentina), Miguel Gomes (Portugal) and Corneliu Porumboiu (Romania, producer Sylvie Pialat (France), and actress Nina Meurisse (France).

Synopsis: Giano and Luc hardly know each other. They are traveling through a wood when a sudden storm breaks, forcing them to take shelter in Luc’s spacious villa. With the ice broken, they start wrestling playfully, but suddenly, an accident happens. Panic-stricken, Giano doesn’t know whether Luc is knocked out or dead. Luc’s sister arrives home unexpectedly, Giano works up the courage to introduce himself but she virtually ignores him. Taking advantage of her absence somewhere in the recesses of the villa, Giano recovers Luc’s body, silently carries it out to the car and sets off again for the wood.

The short film initiative is organised by the European Film Academy in co-operation with fifteen film festivals throughout Europe. At each of these festivals, an independent jury presents one of the European short films in competition with a nomination in the short film category of the European Film Awards.

When the annual cycle is completed in September, the nominees will be presented to the over 2,000 members of the European Film Academy and it is they who will elect the overall winner: the European Film Academy Short Film 2010 which will be presented at the 23rd European Film Awards Ceremony on 4 December in Tallinn/Estonia.

The next nomination will be presented in co-operation with the Venice International Film Festival.

Berlin, 16 August 2010

SHORT FILM NOMINEES FOR EUROPEAN FILM AWARDS
ANNOUNCED IN GRIMSTAD AND EDINBURGH

The European Film Academy (EFA) takes pleasure in announcing the following two new entries in the nomination procedure for the short film category of the European Film Awards 2010:

Grimstad Short Film Nominee for the European Film Awards 2010
HANOI - WARSZAWA by Katarzyna Klimkiewicz
Poland 2009, 30 min., fiction

and

Edinburgh Short Film Nominee for the European Film Awards 2010
MARÍA’S WAY by Anne Milne
UK/Spain 2009, 16 min., documentary

HANOI - WARSZAWA is a film dealing with the fate of illegal immigrants from Vietnam who try to settle in Poland. The film was selected by the International Jury at the Norwegian Short Film Festival in Grimstad which was composed of Knut Åsdam (Norway), Mårten Nilsson (Sweden), Suvi West (Finland), Roland Nguyen (France) and Kari Moen Kristiansen (Norway).

Contact: Krakow Film Foundation, Katarzyna Wilk, katarzyna@kff.com.pl

The documentary MARÍA’S WAY, a portrait of Maria who is positioned on a famed pilgrimage route to Santiago de Compostela in Spain, received its nomination at the Edinburgh International Film Festival. The film is a British-Spanish co-production.

Contact: Anne Milne, anne@annemilne.com

The short film initiative is organised by the European Film Academy in co-operation with fifteen film festivals throughout Europe. At each of these festivals, an independent jury presents one of the European short films in competition with a nomination in the short film category of the European Film Awards.

When the annual cycle is completed in September, the nominees will be presented to the over 2,000 members of the European Film Academy and it is they who will elect the overall winner: the European Film Academy Short Film 2010 which will be presented at the 23rd European Film Awards Ceremony on 4 December in Tallinn/Estonia.

The next nomination will be presented in co-operation with Curtas Vila do Conde - International Short Film Festival on 11 July 2010.

Berlin, 23 June 2010

SWEDISH SHORT NOMINATED FOR EUROPEAN FILM AWARDS

The European Film Academy (EFA) and the Krakow Film Festival congratulate the

Cracow Short Film Nominee for the European Film Awards 2010

TUSSILAGO
by Jonas Odell
Sweden 2010, 15 min., animation

West German terrorist Norbert Kröcher was arrested in Stockholm on 31 March 1977. He was the leader of a group that was planning to kidnap Swedish politician Anna-Greta Leijon. A number of suspects were arrested in the days that followed. One of these people was Kröcher’s ex-girlfriend, “A”. This is her story…

Contact:
FilmTecknarna Fiction AB
linda.hamback@filmtecknarna.se

The film is now nominated for the award European Film Academy Short Film 2010. It was selected by the festival’s International Short Film Jury which was made up of chairman Krzysztof Zanussi, director/producer from Poland, Georgi Lazarevski, documentary cinematographer and director from France, Polish director Borys Lankosz, Todd Luoto, director, journalist and shorts programmer for the Sundance Film Festival (U.S.), and Austrian animation film maker Hubert Sielecki.

The short film initiative is organised by the European Film Academy in co-operation with fifteen film festivals throughout Europe. At each of these festivals, an independent jury presents one of the European short films in competition with a nomination in the short film category of the European Film Awards.

When the annual cycle is completed in September, the nominees will be presented to the over 2,000 members of the European Film Academy and it is they who will elect the overall winner: the European Film Academy Short Film 2010 which will be presented at the 23rd European Film Awards Ceremony on 4 December in Tallinn/Estonia.

The next nomination will be presented in co-operation with the Norwegian Short Film Festival Grimstad on 21 June 2010.

Berlin, 7 June 2010

FINNISH DOCUMENTARY SHORT NOMINATED

The European Film Academy (EFA) and the Tampere Film Festival congratulate the

Tampere Short Film Nominee for the European Film Awards 2010

LUMIKKO (The Little Snow Animal)
by Miia Tervo
Finland 2009, 19 min., documentary

The film is now nominated for the award European Film Academy Short Film 2010. It was selected by the festival’s international jury which was made up of film critic and editor Philip Cheah (Singapore), writer/director Pablo Lamar (Paraguay), festival director Karen Rais-Nordentoft (Denmark), director/scriptwriter Selma Vilhunen (Finland), and documentary filmmaker Wu Wenguang (China).

Their decision was explained as follows:

The jury gives the EFA Tampere Nomination to a film which surpasses narrow genre definitions. The filmmaker takes it upon her to unfold human existential issues in a complex multi-layered way, and the outcome seems both very particular and universal, but most of all strikingly authentic. This hybrid of imagery, voices and music is brilliantly brought together to form a visionary depiction of a human mind and soul. For its skilful and delicate balancing of devices and styles and for the complex yet precise handling of evocative subject matter the jury awards the EFA Tampere Nomination to THE LITTLE SNOW ANIMAL by Miia Tervo.

The short film initiative is organised by the European Film Academy in co-operation with fifteen film festivals throughout Europe. At each of these festivals, an independent jury presents one of the European short films in competition with a nomination in the short film category of the European Film Awards.

When the annual cycle is completed in September, the nominees will be presented to the over 2,000 members of the European Film Academy and it is they who will elect the overall winner: the European Film Academy Short Film 2010 which will be presented at the 23rd European Film Awards Ceremony on 4 December
in Tallinn/Estonia.

The next nomination will be presented in the beginning of June in co-operation with the Krakow Film Festival (Poland).

Berlin, 16 March 2010

BELGIAN SHORT NOMINATED FOR EUROPEAN FILM AWARDS

The European Film Academy (EFA) and the Berlin International Film Festival congratulate the

Berlin Short Film Nominee for the European Film Awards 2010
VENUS VS ME
by Nathalie Teirlinck
Belgium 2009, 27 min., fiction

The film is now nominated for the award European Film Academy Short Film 2010. It was selected by the festival’s international short film jury which was made up of Zita Carvalhosa, founder and director of the São Paulo International Short Film Festival (Brazil), Max Dax, chief editor of German pop culture magazine Spex, and British producer Samm Haillay.

VENUS VS ME tells the story of twelve-year-old Marie who has problems putting her childhood behind her. Ever since her young mother brought home a new boyfriend, Marie’s questions have gone unanswered and communication would seem to be impossible. Marie desperately tries to win back her mother for herself, at the same time seeking comfort in the world of her memories.

The short film initiative is organised by the European Film Academy in co-operation with fifteen film festivals throughout Europe. At each of these festivals, an independent jury presents one of the European short films in competition with a nomination in the short film category of the European Film Awards.

When the annual cycle is completed in September, the nominees will be presented to the over 2,000 members of the European Film Academy and it is they who will elect the overall winner: the European Film Academy Short Film 2010 which will be presented at the 23rd European Film Awards Ceremony on 4 December
in Tallinn/Estonia.

The next nomination will be presented in March in co-operation with the Tampere Film Festival (Finland).

Berlin, 17 February 2009

The European Film Academy (EFA) and the International Film Festival Rotterdam congratulate the

Rotterdam Short Film Nominee for the European Film Awards 2010
ØNSKEBØRN (Out Of Love)
by Birgitte Stærmose (Denmark 2009, 29 min., documentary fiction)

The film is now nominated for the award European Film Academy Short Film 2010. It was selected by the festival’s international jury which was made up of Jeremy Rigsby (programmer of Media City Festival in Windsor, Canada), Shai Heredia (director of Filter India Festival, Mumbai, India) and filmmaker, writer, visual artist and teacher Albert Wulffers (the Netherlands).

OUT OF LOVE tells a gripping story about the experiences of children in an unreal-looking Pristina, the capital of Kosovo, told in an unorthodox way.

The short film initiative is organised by the European Film Academy in co-operation with a series of film festivals throughout Europe. At each of these festivals, an independent jury presents one of the European short films in competition with a nomination in the short film category of the European Film Awards.

The European Film Academy is happy to announce that the Locarno International Film Festival has just joined the EFA Short Film Initiative, so that the programme now includes a total of 15 festivals (see complete list).

OUT OF LOVE joins the following nominees: AMOR by Thomas Wangsmo (Norway 2009, 14 min, fiction), selected at the Flanders International Film Festival - Ghent; DER AMPELMANN by Giulio Ricciarelli (Germany 2009, 14 min, fiction), selected at the Valladolid International Film Festival, LES ESCARGOTS DE JOSEPH (Joseph’s Snails) by Sophie Roze (France 2009, 12 min, animation), selected at the Corona Cork Film Festival; and BLIJF BIJ ME, WEG by Paloma Aguilera Valdebenito (The Netherlands 2009, 24 min, fiction), selected at the Premiers Plans - Festival d’Angers.

The next nomination will be presented in co-operation with the Berlin International Film Festival.

When the annual cycle is completed in September, the nominees will be presented to the over 2,000 members of the European Film Academy and it is they who will elect the overall winner: the European Film Academy Short Film 2010 which will be presented at the 23rd European Film Awards Ceremony on 4 December in Tallinn/Estonia.

Berlin, 08 February 2010

This year’s 23rd European Film Awards will see the re-launch of two award categories: EUROPEAN PRODUCTION DESIGNER and EUROPEAN EDITOR.

The move has been decided by the Board of the European Film Academy during their latest meeting in Berlin and reflects the distinct wish by EFA Members to honour the outstanding contribution of production designers and editors to European film culture.

The two awards replace the Prix d’Excellence which honoured achievements in the different film crafts. The recipients will be elected by the more than 2,000 members of the European Film Academy. They will vote from a list of three nominations in each of these categories, chosen from the selection list of around 40 recommended films.

The European Film Awards 2010 will be celebrated in Tallinn, Estonia, on 4 December.

Berlin, 2 February 2010

EUROPEAN FILM 2009
DAS WEISSE BAND (The White Ribbon), Germany/Austria/France/Italy
written and directed by Michael Haneke
produced by Stefan Arndt, Veit Heiduschka, Michael Katz, Margaret Menegoz
& Andrea Occhipinti

EUROPEAN DIRECTOR 2009
Michael Haneke for DAS WEISSE BAND (The White Ribbon)

EUROPEAN ACTOR 2009
Tahar Rahim in UN PROPHETE (A Prophet)

EUROPEAN ACTRESS 2009
Kate Winslet in THE READER (Der Vorleser)

EUROPEAN SCREENWRITER 2009
Michael Haneke for DAS WEISSE BAND (The White Ribbon)

CARLO DI PALMA EUROPEAN CINEMATOGRAPHER AWARD 2009
Anthony Dod Mantle for ANTICHRIST & SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE

EUROPEAN FILM ACADEMY PRIX D’EXCELLENCE 2009
Brigitte Taillandier, Francis Wargnier, Jean-Paul Hurier & Marc Doisne for
the Sound Design, UN PROPHETE (A Prophet)

EUROPEAN COMPOSER 2009
Alberto Iglesias for LOS ABRAZOS ROTOS (Broken Embraces)

EUROPEAN DISCOVERY 2009
KATALIN VARGA, Romania/UK/Hungary
written & directed by Peter Strickland
produced by Tudor Giurgiu, Oana Giurgiu & Peter Strickland

EUROPEAN FILM ACADEMY ANIMATED FEATURE FILM 2009
MIA ET LE MIGOU (Mia and the Migoo), France/Italy
directed by Jacques-Rémy Girerd

EUROPEAN FILM ACADEMY SHORT FILM 2009
POSTE RESTANTE by Marcel Lozinski

EUROPEAN FILM ACADEMY LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD
Ken Loach

EUROPEAN ACHIEVEMENT IN WORLD CINEMA
Isabelle Huppert

EUROPEAN FILM ACADEMY DOCUMENTARY 2009 – Prix ARTE
THE SOUND OF INSECTS - Record of a Mummy, Switzerland
by Peter Liechti

EUROPEAN CO-PRODUCTION AWARD – Prix EURIMAGES
Diana Elbaum and Jani Thiltges

EUROPEAN FILM ACADEMY CRITICS AWARD 2009 – Prix FIPRESCI
Andrzej Wajda for TATARAK (Sweet Rush)

PEOPLE’S CHOICE AWARD for Best European Film
SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE, UK
directed by Danny Boyle
written by Simon Beaufoy
produced by Christian Colson

THE 22nd EUROPEAN FILM AWARDS:
Ruhr Metropolis / Germany, 12 Dec 2009

When the doors open for the 22nd European Film Awards on Saturday, 12 December, the world of European cinema will step onto the red carpet at the spectacular venue of the Jahrhunderthalle in Bochum. Winners, nominees and EFA Members - altogether 1,400 guests will be welcomed by German comedy star Anke Engelke who will lead through the evening as the show’s host.

An impressive line-up of actors and actresses will enter the stage to present the individual awards, among them Victoria Abril (Spain), Caterina Murino (Italy), Johanna ter Steege (the Netherlands), and María Valverde (Spain), as well as Detlev Buck (Germany), Jesper Christensen (Denmark), Sir Ben Kingsley (UK), Maciej Stuhr (Poland), and Anatole Taubman (Switzerland).

Joining them will be documentary director Nino Kirtadzé (France/Georgia), actor/director Aksel Hennie (Norway) who was part of the European Film Promotion’s SHOOTING STARS programme in 2004, and director/actor Branko Djuric (Bosnia & Herzegovina).

The list of presenters is completed by Dr. Gottfried Langenstein, President of ARTE, Viviane Reding, EU Commissioner for Information, Society and Media, and EFA President Wim Wenders.

Among the guests this year will be actresses Hannelore Elsner (Germany), Krystyna Janda (Poland), and Julia Jentsch (Germany), directors Roland Emmerich and Sönke Wortmann. Award winners already announced include Peter Liechti (EFA Documentary 2009 - Prix ARTE), Diana Elbaum and Jani Thiltges (European Co-production Award - Prix EURIMAGES), Andrzej Wajda (EFA Critics’ Award 2009 - Prix FIPRESCI) and the recipients of the honorary awards Ken Loach and Isabelle Huppert.

Berlin, 8 December 2009