At the Seville European Film Festival the European Film Academy and EFA Productions proudly announced the nominations for the 28th European Film Awards.
The more than 3,000 EFA Members will now vote for the winners who will be presented during the awards ceremony on 12 December in Berlin.
Leading field is YOUTH, Paolo Sorrentino’s bittersweet reflection on life, with five nominations, including film, directing and screenplay, as well as acting nominations for Rachel Weisz and Michael Caine.
It is followed by two films with four nominations each: Roy Andersson's darkly surreal comedy A PIGEON SAT ON A BRANCH REFLECTING ON EXISTENCE (En duva satt på en gren och funderade på tillvaron) received nominations for film and comedy; Andersson is recognized for directing and screenplay. And Yorgos Lanthimos’ absurdist science fiction comedy drama THE LOBSTER is nominated for film, directing and screenplay (Yorgos Lanthimos & Efthimis Filippou), as well as Colin Farrell as actor.
Two films have garnered three nominations each. Sebastian Schipper’s one shot tour de force through a Berlin night, VICTORIA, is nominated for European Film, Schipper as director and Laia Costa as actress; British film maker Andrew Haigh received a nomination as screenwriter for his moving marital drama 45 YEARS (the other two go to the actors Charlotte Rampling and Tom Courtenay).
The remaining two films nominated for European Film are the French-Turkish coming-of-age drama MUSTANG about five sisters in Anatolia by Deniz Gamze Ergüven, which received a prior Discovery nomination for best debut feature, as well as the Icelandic poignant dramedy RAMS (Hrútar) by Grímur Hákonarson.
Two more films are nominated as European Comedy, together with A PIGEON...: Eric Lartigeau’s warm-hearted family comedy THE BÉLIER FAMILY (La famillie Bélier) from France and Jaco Van Dormael’s divine satire THE BRAND NEW TESTAMENT (Le tout nouveau testament) from Belgium.
The Italian semibiographical comedy-drama MY MOTHER (Mia madre) received two nominations, for director Nanni Moretti and actress Margherita Buy. And the British science fiction drama about Artificial Intelligence, EX MACHINA, is nominated for screenplay (by Alex Garland) and actress (Alicia Vikander).
The remaining director nomination goes to Polish auteur Małgorzata Szumowska for her darkly comic study BODY (Ciało). Two more actors are nominated for their work: Christian Friedel in the German Nazi-era drama 13 MINUTES (Elser – Er hätte die Welt verändert) and Vincent Lindon in the French social drama THE MEASURE OF A MAN (La loi du marché). And Radu Jude & Florin Lazarescu are nominated for their screenplay for Jude’s Romanian period drama AFERIM!
Last but not least, the documentary category includes A SYRIAN LOVE STORY by Sean McAllister and AMY by Asif Kapadia, both from the UK; DANCING WITH MARIA by Ivan Gergolet (Italy, Argenitia, Slovenia), THE LOOK OF SILENCE by Joshua Oppenheimer (Denmark, Norway, Indonesia) and TOTO AND HIS SISTERS (Toto si surorile lui) by Alexander Nanau (Romania, Hungary).
THE 28th EUROPEAN FILM AWARDS: 12 December 2015 – streamed live here
Berlin and Seville, 7 November 2015