The European Film Academy has unveiled its shortlist of 12 in the running for this year’s European Film . The 12 feature docs include recent winners in Sundance, Berlin, and Locarno and represent a cross-section of European filmmakers. Among the more high-profile titles on the list are Mati Diop’s , which looks at the return of plundered African treasures to Benin as a way of examining the enduring impact of colonialism; Johan Grimonprez’s , a world cinema jury award winner in Sundance, which sets the struggle for Congolese independence to a jazz soundtrack, examining how traces how the U.
S. used music ambassadors like Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington and Nina Simone to build goodwill with the Congo while carrying out operations to destabilize the region; and , from directors Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor, Basel Adra, and Hamdan Ballal, an examination of a West Bank’s village by Israeli soldiers, which won Berlin’s documentary prize. Swiss filmmaker Nicole Vögele has two docs in contention: , a look at the struggles of refugees on the Bosnian-Croatian border, which took the Grand Jury Prize at the Swiss doc festival Vision du Reel, and her upcoming non-fiction feature .
Other European Film Award documentary contenders include from French director Nicolas Philibert, from Lina Soualem, Alina Maksimenko’s , from director Kinshuk Surjan, Farahnaz Sharifi’s , László Csáki’s , and from directors Guillaume Cailleau and Ben Russell. To be eligible, the films had to have their first official screening between June 1, 2023 and May 31, 2024, and be directed by a European filmmaker. The 5,000 members of the European Film Academy will watch the selected documentaries over the coming months and vote for the final nominees, which will be announced on Nov.
5. The winners of this year’s will be announced at an awards ceremony on December 7th in Lucerne, Switzerland. THR Newsletters Sign up for THR news straight to your inbox every day More from The Hollywood Reporter.
