EUROPEAN ACADEMY BOARD MEETING

This year the European Film Academy has chosen to have its Autumn board meeting, the last prior to the European Film Awards with us at the Zagreb Film Festival with the support of the Croatian Audiovisual Centre (HAVC).  The European Film Academy shares with us a common passion to promote the films of emerging film makers in the Discovery section of the awards and very often the choice of the Academy and the choice of the festival coincides.  We extend a warm welcome therefore on to Yves Marmion, Adriana Chiesa di Palma, Daniela Ciancio, Per Holst, Cedomir Kolar, Despina Mouzaki, Goran Paskaljevic, Antonio Perez Perez, Nik Powell, Antonio Saura, Els Vandevorst, Andrzej Zulawski and the EFA team of Marion Döring, Jürgen Biesinger and Maria von Horsten and trust that the City of Zagreb will prove a fruitful location for their discussions.

Mike Downey
Board Member of the European Film Academy
Artistic Advisor Zagreb Film Festival

Founded in 1988, the European Film Academy (EFA) now unites more than 2,500 European film professionals with the common aim of promoting European film culture. Throughout the year, the EFA initiates and participates in a series of activities dealing with film politics as well as economic, artistic, and training aspects. The programme includes conferences, seminars and workshops, and a common goal is to build a bridge between creativity and the industry. These activities culminate in the annual presentation of the European Film Awards.

With 17 award categories, the European Film Awards annually honour achievements in European cinema, among them European Film, European Director, European Actor and European Actress. A regular highlight is the presentation of the Lifetime Achievement Award - in the past this prestigious prize went to legendary actors and actresses like Dame Judi Dench (2008), Sir Sean Connery (2005) and Bruno Ganz (2010), or iconic directors as Claude Chabrol (2003), Jean-Luc Godard (2007), Ken Loach (2009) and Roman Polanski (2006). In the past weeks, the members of the European Film Academy have voted for the nominations in the different award categories. The nominations will be announced on 5 November at the Seville European Film Festival in Spain. And on 3 December we will find out who the winners are – at the 24th European Film Awards in Berlin!