European Film Awards 2023: And the nominees are…

The European Film Academy has revealed the nominees for the main categories of the 36th European Film Awards (EFAs), which take place on 9 December in Berlin. (Scroll down for the full list.)

Three of the Best European Film nominees world premiered at Cannes and won major awards there (Anatomy Of A Fall; The Zone of Interest; Fallen Leaves), while the other two nominees premiered in Venice this year – Green Border and Me Captain – and also came home with trophies: Special Jury Prize and Best Actor respectively.

Jonathan Glazer’s harrowing Holocaust drama The Zone of Interest leads the nominations with five nods, including Best Film and Best Director. The film won both the Cannes Grand Prix and the FIPRESCI Prize, and has been selected as the UK’s official entry for the 2024 Oscars in the Best International Feature category.

Loosely based on Martin Amis’ 2014 novel, The Zone of Interest is Glazer’s first feature in 10 years, following 2013’s Under The Skin. It follows Auschwitz camp commandant Rudolf Höss (Christian Friedel) and his wife Hedwig (Sandra Hüller), who both build a dream life for their family in their home situated on the other side of the concentration camp wall. We observe the everyday domesticity of the family: friendly visits, servants keeping the house spotless, Hedwig tending to her Edenic “paradise garden” and appreciating the living space she has built next to a dying one. It is a profoundly disturbing and audacious portrait of what Hannah Arendt referred to as the “banality of evil”.

The film also nabbed nominations for Best Actress and Best Actor for Hüller and Friedel.

Hüller will be competing against herself in the Best Actress category, having picked up a second nomination for her role in Justine Triet’s Palme d’Or winning courtroom drama Anatomy of a Fall. The French director’s film recieved four EFA noms, including Best Film, Best Director and Best Screenplay for Triet and co-writer Arthur Harari.

The other nominees for Best European Film include Matteo Garrone’s refugee drama Io Capitano (Italy), Aki Kaurismäki’s Finnish romantic drama Fallen Leaves, which won Cannes’ Jury Prize, and Agnieszka Holland’s Green Border.

Green Border is an emotionally devastating indictment of a continuing EU crisis and one of Holland’s best films. The title refers to the forests that make up the no-man’s land between Belarus and Poland. There, refugees from the Middle East and Africa desperately try to reach the European Union and find themselves trapped in an absurd to-and-fro overseen by both the Belarusian and Polish governments. Refugees are lured to the border, with the promise of safe passage to the EU. The reality is that they are political pawns in a rigged game orchestrated by Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko; they are brutally evicted between the two sides, neither of which claims any responsibility and continues to condemn them to a horrifically finite in-limbo.

The film came under fire from Poland’s previous far-right government, withPoland’s justice minister Zbigniew Ziobro comparing the movie to “Nazi propaganda”.

The Best Actress race this year sees Hüller competing against Fallen Leaves star Alma Pöysti; Leonie Benesch, who plays an educator in İlker Çatak’s _The Teachers’ Lounge;_Eka Chavleishvili in Elene Naveriani’s Georgian drama _Blackbird Blackbird Blackberry;_and Mia McKenna-Bruce for Molly Manning Walker’s superb How To Have Sex.

The Best Actor contenders also include Mads Mikkelsen for Nikolaj Arcel’s The Promised Land; Josh O’Connor for Alice Rohrwacher’s La Chimera; Thomas Schubert for Christian Petzold’s Afire; and Fallen Leaves ‘Jussi Vatanen.

This year’s nomination video announcement features teenage members of the European Film Academy’s newly launched European Film Club, a new initiative aimed at nurturing film culture in the 12 to 19-year-old demographic.

Here are the 2023 nominees:

European Film

• ANATOMY OF A FALL (ANATOMIE D’UNE CHUTE) – Directed by Justine Triet (France)
• FALLEN LEAVES (KUOLLEET LEHDET) – Directed by Aki Kaurismäki (Finland, Germany)
• GREEN BORDER (ZIELONA GRANICA) – Directed by Agnieszka Holland (Poland, France, Czech Republic, Belgium)
• ME CAPTAIN (IO CAPITANO) – Directed by Matteo Garrone (Italy, Belgium)
• THE ZONE OF INTEREST – Directed by Jonathan Glazer (United Kingdom, Poland, USA)

European Documentary

• APOLONIA, APOLONIA – Directed by Lea Glob (Denmark, Poland)
• FOUR DAUGHTERS (LES FILLES D’OLFA) – Directed by Kaouther Ben Hania (France, Tunisia, Germany, Saudi Arabia)
• MOTHERLAND – Directed by Hanna Badziaka & Alexander Mihalkovich (Sweden, Ukraine, Norway)
• ON THE ADAMANT (SUR L’ADAMANT) – Directed by Nicolas Philibert (France, Japan)
• SMOKE SAUNA SISTERHOOD (SAVVUSANNA SÕSARAD) – Directed by Anna Hints (Estonia, France, Iceland)

European Director

• Justine Triet for ANATOMY OF A FALL
• Aki Kaurismäki for FALLEN LEAVES
• Agnieszka Holland for GREEN BORDER
• Matteo Garrone for ME CAPTAIN
• Jonathan Glazer for THE ZONE OF INTEREST

European Actress

• Sandra Hüller in ANATOMY OF A FALL
• Eka Chavleishvili in BLACKBIRD BLACKBIRD BLACKBERRY
• Alma Pöysti in FALLEN LEAVES
• Mia McKenna-Bruce in HOW TO HAVE SEX
• Leonie Benesch in THE TEACHERS’ LOUNGE
• Sandra Hüller in THE ZONE OF INTEREST

European Actor

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• Thomas Schubert in AFIRE
• Jussi Vatanen in FALLEN LEAVES
• Josh O’Connor in LA CHIMERA
• Mads Mikkelsen in THE PROMISED LAND
• Christian Friedel in THE ZONE OF INTEREST

European Screenwriter

• Justine Triet & Arthur Harari for ANATOMY OF A FALL
• Aki Kaurismäki for FALLEN LEAVES
• Maciej Pisuk, Gabriela Łazarkiewicz-Sieczko & Agnieszka Holland for GREEN BORDER
• İlker Çatak & Johannes Duncker for THE TEACHERS’ LOUNGE
• Jonathan Glazer for THE ZONE OF INTEREST

European Discovery – Prix FIPRESCI

• 20,000 SPECIES OF BEES (20.000 ESPECIES DE ABEJAS) directed by Estibaliz Urresola Solaguren (Spain)
• HOW TO HAVE SEX directed by Molly Manning Walker (United Kingdom, Greece)
• LA PALISIADA (ЛЯ ПАЛІСІАДА) directed by Philip Sotnychenko (Ukraine)
• SAFE PLACE (SIGURNO MJESTO) directed by Juraj Lerotić (Croatia, Slovenia)
• THE QUIET MIGRATION (STILLE LIV) directed by Malene Choi (Denmark)
• VINCENT MUST DIE (VINCENT DOIT MOURIR) directed by Stéphan Castang (France)

European Animated Feature Film

• A GREYHOUND OF A GIRL directed by Enzo d’Alò
• CHICKEN FOR LINDA! directed by Chiara Malta, Sébastien Laudenbach
• ROBOT DREAMS directed by Pablo Berger
• TEH AMAZING MAURICE directed by Toby Genkel
• WHITE PLASTIC SKY directed by Tibor Bánóczki, Sarolta Szabó

European Short Film

• 27, directed by Flóra Anna Buda
• AQUERONTE directed by Manuel Muñoz Rivas
• DAYDREAMING SO VIVIDLY ABOUT OUR SPANISH HOLIDAYS directed by Christian Avilés
• FLORES DEL OTRO PATIO directed by Jorge Cadena
• HARDLY WORKING directed by Susanna Flock, Robin Klengel, Leonhard Müllner, Michael Stumpf

The nominations are based on the votes of 4,600 members of the European Film Academy who have been watching the films included in the annual Academy Selection.

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The winners of the 2023 European Film Awards will be announced in Berlin on 9 December.