European Film Academy Names European Discovery Nominees

COLOGNE, Germany – Europe's bigger nations got snubbed for the European Discovery 2011 - Prix FIPRESCI, the European Film Academy's best first film honor, with nominations going instead to two Austrian, one Belgium, one Danish and one Serbian film.

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European Film Academy unveils noms

Michael, Markus Schleinzer’s disturbing look at a boy kidnapped by a pedophile and Breathing, the directorial debut of actor Karl Markovics (The Counterfeiters) about a 19-year-old criminal trying to rebuild his life, were the two Austrian films to make the cut.

Belgium nominee Oxygen from director Hans Van Nuffel and Mikkel Munch-Fals’ Nothing's All Bad from Denmark have more mainstream appeal. Both deal with social outsiders: in the case of in the case of Oxygen, it’s two young men suffering from an incurable lung disease; in Nothing’s All Bad the focus is on four lonely souls: a beautiful woman with a physical handicap, a kind man with a psychological one, a woman who thinks she’s ugly and a boy who has sex appeal for sale. The dark horse in this year’s Discovery race is Tilva Ros, Nikola Lezaic’s tale of Serbian skaters who get caught up in a local union protest.

The 2,500 members of the European Film Academy will vote for the winner of this year’s European Discovery prize and the winner will be announced at the 24th European Film Awards in Berlin Dec. 3.