36th European Film Awards

The 36th European Film Awards, presented by the European Film Academy to recognize achievements in European filmmaking, took place at Arena Berlin in Berlin on 9 December 2023. It was the twenty-second time that the awards ceremony took place in Germany.^[1]

36th European Film Awards
Logo for Berlin awards
Date	9 December 2023 (2023-12-09)
Site	Berlin, Germany
Organized by	European Film Academy
Official website	EFA
← 2022 European Film Awards 2024 →

The full list of nominations was revealed on 7 November 2023. Aki Kaurismäki's Fallen Leaves and Jonathan Glazer's The Zone of Interest led the nominations with five each.^[2] Justine Triet's Anatomy of a Fall swept the awards, winning in each of the categories it was nominated for, including European Film, European Director, European Screenwriter and European Actress.^[3]

Selections

Feature films

Selection's part 1 was announced on 16 August 2023.^[4] 2nd part of the selection was announced on 27 September 2023.^[5]

• 20,000 Species of Bees – Estibaliz Urresola Solaguren ( Spain)
• Afire – Christian Petzold ( Germany)
• Anatomy of a Fall – Justine Triet ( France)
• Animal – Sofia Exarchou ( Greece,  Austria,  Bulgaria,  Romania,  Cyprus)
• The Animal Kingdom – Thomas Cailley ( France)
• Behind the Haystacks – Asimina Proedrou ( Greece,  Germany,  North Macedonia)
• Blackbird Blackbird Blackberry – Elene Naveriani (  Switzerland,  Georgia)
• Blaga's Lessons – Stephan Komandarev ( Bulgaria,  Germany)
• Close Your Eyes – Victor Erice ( Spain,  Argentina)
• Club Zero – Jessica Hausner ( Austria,  UK,  Germany,  France,  Denmark,  Qatar)
• Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World – Radu Jude ( Romania,  Luxembourg,  France,  Croatia)
• Excursion – Una Gunjak ( Bosnia and Herzegovina,  Croatia,  Serbia,  France,  Norway,  Qatar)
• Explanation for Everything – Gábor Reisz ( Hungary,  Slovakia)
• Fallen Leaves – Aki Kaurismäki ( Finland,  Germany)
• Femme – Sam H. Freeman, Ng Choon Ping ( United Kingdom)
• Firebrand – Karim Aïnouz ( United Kingdom)
• The Goldman Case – Cédric Kahn ( France)
• Green Border – Agnieszka Holland ( Poland,  France,  Czechia,  Belgium)
• The Happiest Man in the World – Teona Strugar Mitevska ( North Macedonia,  Bosnia and Herzegovina,  Belgium,  Slovenia,  Croatia,  Denmark)
• Holly – Fien Troch ( Belgium,  Luxembourg,  Netherlands,  France)
• Housekeeping for Beginners – Goran Stolevski ( North Macedonia,  Croatia,  Serbia,  Poland,  Kosovo)
• How to Have Sex – Molly Manning Walker ( United Kingdom,  Greece)
• Kidnapped – Marco Bellocchio ( Italy,  France,  Germany)
• La chimera – Alice Rohrwacher ( Italy,  France,   Switzerland)
• Me, Captain – Matteo Garrone ( Italy,  Belgium)
• The Old Oak – Ken Loach ( United Kingdom,  France,  Belgium)
• Paradise Is Burning – Mika Gustafson ( Sweden,  Italy,  Denmark,  Finland)
• The Pot-au-Feu – Tran Anh Hung ( France)
• The Promised Land – Nikolaj Arcel ( Denmark,  Germany,  Sweden)
• Safe Place – Juraj Lerotic ( Croatia,  Slovenia)
• Slow – Marija Kavtaradze ( Lithuania,  Spain,  Sweden)
• Society of the Snow – J. A. Bayona ( Spain)
• Stepne – Maryna Vroda ( Ukraine,  Slovakia,  Germany,  Poland)
• Sweet Dreams – Ena Sendijarević ( Netherlands,  Sweden,  Indonesia)
• Tatami – Guy Nattiv & Zar Amir Ebrahimi ( Georgia,  USA)
• The Teachers' Lounge – İlker Çatak ( Germany)
• The Universal Theory – Timm Kröger ( Germany,  Austria,   Switzerland)
• The Vanishing Soldier – Dani Rosenberg ( Israel)
• Woman Of... – Małgorzata Szumowska & Michał Englert ( Poland,  Sweden)
• The Zone of Interest – Jonathan Glazer ( UK,  Poland,  USA)

Documentary

The selection was announced on August 30, 2023.^[6]

• Apolonia, Apolonia – Lea Glob ( Denmark,  Poland)
• Between Revolutions – Vlad Petri ( Romania,  Croatia)
• Four Daughters – Kaouther Ben Hania ( France,  Tunisia,  Germany,  Saudi Arabia)
• The Hearing – Lisa Gerig (  Switzerland)
• In the Rearview – Maciej Hamela ( Poland,  France,  Ukraine)
• Light Falls Vertical – Efthymia Zymvragaki ( Spain,  Germany,  Italy,  the Netherlands)
• Motherland – Hanna Badziaka & Alexander Mihalkovich ( Sweden,  Ukraine,  Norway)
• On the Adamant – Nicolas Philibert ( France,  Japan)
• Orlando, My Political Biography – Paul B. Preciado ( France)
• Our Body – Claire Simon ( France)
• Paradise – Alexander Abaturov ( France,   Switzerland)
• Smoke Sauna Sisterhood – Anna Hints ( Estonia,  France,  Iceland)
• We Will Not Fade Away – Alisa Kovalenko ( Ukraine,  France,  Poland)
• Who I Am Not – Tunde Skovran ( Romania,  Canada,  Germany)

Short films

The European Short Film 2023 is presented in co-operation with the following European film festivals. At each of the festivals, a jury appointed by the festival chooses a single candidate.^[7]

• Airhostess-737 – Thanasis Neofotistos ( Greece) – selected at International Short Film Festival of Cyprus
• Asterión – Francesco Montagner ( Czechia,  Slovakia) – selected at Riga International Film Festival
• Aqueronte – Manuel Muñoz Rivas ( Spain) = selected at Drama International Short Film Festival
• Been There – Corina Schwingruber Ilić (  Switzerland) – selected at Locarno Film Festival
• The Birthday Party – Francesco Sossai ( Germany,  Italy,  France) – selected at Curtas Vila do Conde – International Film Festival
• Chords – Estibaliz Urresola Solaguren ( Spain) – selected at Go Short – International Short Film Festival
• Daydreaming So Vividly About Our Spanish Holidays – Christian Avilés ( Spain) – selected at DokuFest – International Documentary and Short Film Festival
• The Debutante – Elizabeth Hobbs ( UK) – selected at Black Nights Film Festival – PÖFF Shorts
• Emotional Architecture 1959 – León Siminiani ( Spain) – selected at Valladolid International Film Festival
• A Free Run – Lauriane Lagarde ( France) – selected at Uppsala Short Film Festival
• Hardly Working – Susanna Flock, Leonhard Müllner, Robin Klengel & Michael Stumpf ( Austria) – selected at Internationale Kurzfilmtage Winterthur
• Headspace – Aisling Byrne ( Ireland) – selected at Cork International Film Festival
• How I Learned to Hang Laundry – Barbara Zemljič ( Slovenia) – selected at Sarajevo Film Festival
• I Can See the Sun But I Can't Feel It Yet – Joseph Wilson ( UK) – selected at Kurzfilm Festival Hamburg
• I Think of Silences When I Think of You – Jonelle Twum ( Sweden) – selected at International Short Film Festival Oberhausen
• Les Chenilles – Michelle Keserwany & Noel Keserwany ( France) – selected at Berlin International Film Festival
• Papa – Notes on Life and Death – Andreas Bøggild Monies ( Denmark) – selected at OFF – Odense International Film Festival
• Red Ears – Paul Drey ( Germany) – selected at Tampere Film Festival
• Remember How I Used to Ride a White Horse – Ivana Bošnjak Volda & Thomas Johnson Volda ( Croatia) – VIENNA SHORTS – International Short Film Festival
• A Short Trip – Erenik Beqiri ( France) – selected at Venice Film Festival
• There Are People in the Forest – Szymon Ruczyński ( Poland) – selected at Kraków Film Festival
• Things Unheard Of – Ramazan Kiliç ( Turkey) – selected at Motovun Film Festival
• 27 – Flóra Anna Buda ( France,  Hungary) – selected at Cannes Film Festival
• Women Visiting the City – Enrique Buelo ( Spain,  France) – selected at Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival
• Zoon – Jonatan Schwenk ( Germany) – selected at ZINEBI – International Festival of Documentary and Short Film of Bilbao and at Leuven International Short Film Festival

Feature Film Awards

Source:^[2]

European Film

English title	Director(s)	Producer(s)
Anatomy of a Fall	Justine Triet	Marie-Ange Luciani David Thion
Fallen Leaves	Aki Kaurismäki	Reinhard Brundig Misha Jaari Aki Kaurismäki Mark Lwoff
Green Border	Agnieszka Holland	Fred Bernstein Agnieszka Holland Marcin Wierzchoslawski
Me Captain	Matteo Garrone	Paolo Del Brocco Matteo Garrone Joseph Rouschop Ardavan Safaee
The Zone of Interest	Jonathan Glazer	Ewa Puszczyńska James Wilson

European Director

Director(s)	English title
Justine Triet	Anatomy of a Fall
Aki Kaurismäki	Fallen Leaves
Agnieszka Holland	Green Border
Matteo Garrone	Me Captain
Jonathan Glazer	The Zone of Interest

European Screenwriter

Screenwriter(s)	English title
Arthur Harari Justine Triet	Anatomy of a Fall
Aki Kaurismäki	Fallen Leaves
Agnieszka Holland Gabriela Łazarkiewicz-Sieczko Maciej Pisuk	Green Border
İlker Çatak Johannes Duncker	The Teachers' Lounge
Jonathan Glazer	The Zone of Interest

European Actor

Actor	English title	Role
Mads Mikkelsen	The Promised Land	Ludvig Kahlen
Thomas Schubert	Afire	Leon
Jussi Vatanen	Fallen Leaves	Holappa
Josh O'Connor	La chimera	Arthur
Christian Friedel	The Zone of Interest	Rudolf Höss

European Actress

Actor	English title	Role
Sandra Hüller	Anatomy of a Fall	Sandra Voyter
Eka Chavleishvili	Blackbird Blackbird Blackberry	Etero
Alma Pöysti	Fallen Leaves	Ansa
Mia McKenna-Bruce	How to Have Sex	Tara
Leonie Benesch	The Teachers' Lounge	Carla Nowak
Sandra Hüller	The Zone of Interest	Hedwig Höss

Excellence Awards

European Cinematography	European Editing	European Production Design	European Costume Design
Rasmus Videbæk for The Promised Land	Laurent Sénéchal for Anatomy of a Fall	Emita Frigato for La chimera	Kicki Ilander for The Promised Land

European Make-Up & Hair	European Original Score	European Sound	European Visual Effects
Ana López-Puigcerver, Belén López-Puigcerver, David Martí & Montse Ribé for Society of the Snow	Markus Binder for Club Zero	Johnnie Burn & Tarn Willers for The Zone of Interest	Félix Bergés & Laura Pedro for Society of the Snow

Awards Not Based on Feature Film Selection

European Discovery – Prix FIPRESCI

Director(s)	English title
Molly Manning Walker	How to Have Sex
Estibaliz Urresola Solaguren	20,000 Species of Bees
Philip Sotnychenko	La Palisiada
Malene Choi	The Quiet Migration
Juraj Lerotić	Safe Place
Stéphan Castang	Vincent Must Die

European Documentary

English title	Original title	Director(s)
Smoke Sauna Sisterhood	Savvusanna sõsarad	Anna Hints
Apolonia, Apolonia		Lea Glob
Four Daughters	Les Filles d'Olfa	Kaouther Ben Hania
Motherland		Hanna Badziaka Alexander Mihalkovich
On the Adamant	Sur l’Adamant	Nicolas Philibert

European Animated Feature Film

English title[8]	Original title	Director(s)
Robot Dreams		Pablo Berger
The Amazing Maurice		Toby Genkel
Chicken for Linda!	Linda veut du poulet!	Sébastien Laudenbach Chiara Malta
A Greyhound of a Girl		Enzo D'Alò
White Plastic Sky	Müanyag égbolt	Tibor Bánóczki Sarolta Szabó

European Short Film

English title[9]	Original title	Director(s)
Hardly Working		Susanna Flock Robin Klengel Leonhard Müllner Michael Stumpf
27		Flóra Anna Buda
Aqueronte		Manuel Muñoz Rivas
Daydreaming So Vividly About Our Spanish Holidays	La herida luminosa	Christian Avilés
Flores del otro patio		/ Jorge Cadena

Honorary Awards

EFA Lifetime Achievement Award[10]	Honorary Award of the Academy President and the Board[11]	European Achievement in World Cinema
Vanessa Redgrave	Béla Tarr	Isabel Coixet

European Innovative Storytelling	Eurimages Co-Production Award[12]	European Sustainability Award – Prix4Climate
—	Uljana Kim	Güler Sabancı

Special Awards

Lux European Audience Film Award 2024

The award is directed to recognize films which help to raise awareness of socio-political issues in Europe.^[13]

English title	Original title	Director(s)
Fallen Leaves	Kuolleet lehdet	Aki Kaurismäki
On the Adamant	Sur l'Adamant	Nicolas Philibert
Smoke Sauna Sisterhood	Savvusanna sõsarad	Anna Hints
The Teachers' Lounge[14]	Das Lehrerzimmer	İlker Çatak
20,000 Species of Bees	20.000 especies de abejas	Estibaliz Urresola Solaguren

European University Film Award (EUFA)

The nominees were announced on 5 October 2023. The nominated films will be viewed and discussed in 25 universities in 25 countries and each institution will select its favourite film. In early December, one student representative from each university will attend a three-day deliberation meeting in Hamburg to decide on the overall winner. The winner will then be announced on 7 December, shortly before this year's European Film Awards Ceremony on 9 December in Berlin.^[15]

English title	Original title	Director(s)
Anatomy of a Fall	Anatomie d'une chute	Justine Triet
Green Border	Zielona granica	Agnieszka Holland
Housekeeping for Beginners		/ Goran Stolevski
How to Have Sex		Molly Manning Walker
The Teachers' Lounge	Das Lehrerzimmer	İlker Çatak