The European Film Awards will only take place virtually this year. The event planned in Reykjavik is now taking place in Berlin.
Another award ceremony fell victim to the corona pandemic, albeit not entirely: The 33rd European Film Awards will only take place virtually in December. The organizers announced this in a press release. Instead of from Reykjavik as planned, the award ceremony will be broadcast on December 12th from the headquarters of the European Film Academy (EFA) in Berlin. The Icelandic capital will have to wait until 2022 – then it will be able to host the 35th "European Oscars". The 34th award ceremony will take place again in Berlin.
Increasing numbers of infections
The main reason for the virtual orientation is the concern about the increasing number of corona infections in Europe and Iceland. The pandemic affects all events that usually take place around the European Film Awards. The EFA continues to say that a new concept for additional online events is currently being worked on.
"The decision was not easy, but it was made with responsibility and out of concern for our guests. Nobody is more disappointed than our Icelandic friends, and we at EFA too, that we cannot meet in Reykjavik this year," explains EFA- President Mike Downey, 61. He is already looking forward to the EFA weekend in 2022 and until then they want to continue to plant the EFA forest in the Icelandic nature reserve Heiðmörk.
For Lilja Alfreðsdóttir (47), Icelandic Minister for Education, Science and Culture, the anticipation for 2022 prevails: "We remain optimistic and look forward to working with the European Film Academy in planning the awards ceremony in 2022, and we hope to see you all in two Years to see in Reykjavik! "
Virtual European Film Awards: what's changing?
However, nothing should change in the award ceremony and the award procedure itself. The more than 3,800 EFA members vote directly for most of the awards, the nominations will be announced on November 10th in a live stream of the European Film Festival in Seville.
The selection list of the 38 films has been fixed since the end of September. These include the Hungarian film "Final Report" with Klaus Maria Brandauer (77) in the lead role, the German drama "Berlin Alexanderplatz" by director Burhan Qurbani (39), "Persian hours" with Lars Eidinger (44) and Armando Iannucci's (56) film "David Copperfield – Once Wealth and Back" with Dev Patel, Tilda Swinton and Hugh Laurie. "Undine" by director Christian Petzold (60) with Paula Beer (25) in the title role also has a chance of being nominated.
New category: "Innovative storytelling"
The EFA is also debuting a new category: the first award for "Innovative Storytelling" goes to the British Mark Cousins (55) for his documentary "Women Make Film: A New Road Movie Through Cinema" – a 14-hour odyssey that the viewer can enjoy Introduces amazing, often overlooked, female cinema writers.