Five Nights of Virtual Celebration for 2020 European Film Awards

The European Film Academy will celebrate the nominees and winners of this year’s European Film Awards (EFA) with a week of virtual events leading up to an online-only EFA ceremony on December 12.

The coronavirus pandemic forced the EFAs to go virtual this year. The nominations for the 2020 European Film Awards will be announced via livestream from the Seville Film Festival in Spain, on Nov. 10.

The Academy will hold five nights of live-streamed events discussing and celebrating European cinema, kicking off Tuesday, Dec. 8 with a panel discussion between directors Thomas Vinterberg (Another Round), Agnieszka Holland (Mr. Jones), Mark Cousins (The Eyes of Orson Welles), and Kirsten Niehuus, managing director of the state film funding body Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg, on how to revive the cinema industry post-COVID-19.

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On Wednesday, Dec. 9, Holland and German director Wim Wenders (Paris, Texas), will present EFA winners in technical categories, including cinematography, editing, production design, costume design, make-up and hair, original score, sound, and visual effects.

Winners of the Euroimages co-production award, as well as the European Short Film and European University Film Award will be announced Thursday, Dec. 10.

On Friday, Dec. 11 the winners for best European Comedy and best European Animation Feature Film will be unveiled.

Every event will go out live at 8 pm Central European time —7 pm U.K., 2 pm New York, 11 am Los Angeles—on www.europeanfilmawards.eu and through the EFA’s international network of streaming and broadcasting partners.

Nominees and winners will join the ceremonies via live video conference. Noted EFA Chairman Mike Downey: “in this unusual year, this will be an unusual, and, we hope an exceptional, awards ceremony – one with a different approach, that will allow us to give more attention to the various awards presented. Necessity being the mother of invention, we have chosen to try out this different format, and will use it to see how we will further develop the EFAs in the years to come.”

The EFAs grand finale, on Friday Dec. 12, will be streamed from the Futurium museum in Berlin and will be hosted by Wenders, Holland, Downey, and EFA director Marion Döring.