Hot pre-Oscar invites in L.A. include the Chanel and Charles Finch dinner, the Motion Picture & Television Fund’s Night Before benefit gala and more intimate agency soirees organized by agencies CAA and WME.
In Berlin, select guests of Saturday evening’s 38th European Film Awards were invited into the homes of locally based members of organizing body the European Film Academy (EFA) for a home-cooked meal.
“We like to do things differently,” EFA CEO and Director Matthijs Wouter Knol told Deadline in the lead-up to the awards, revealing there were around 25 dinners all over for city for EFA members.
“Volker Schlöndorff is cooking dinner,” he continued, referring to the Cannes Palme d’Or and Oscar- winning The Tin Drum director, who is currently working on the feature film Visitation.
“We started this two years ago and it was a great success because many people who didn’t know one another before, spent an evening having dinner in the kitchen of another member.”
The initiative makes sense given the body’s ever-growing membership which now tops 5,400, with members based in more than 50 countries across Europe, following a 30% growth in membership over the past five years.
Wouter Knol, who was previously the head of the Berlinale’s European Film Market, has been at the forefront of this growth since his arrival as EFA’s director in 2021 with the ambitions to expand the reach and influence of the organization and its awards.
More official pre-ceremony events on Friday night included the Mayor’s Night at Berlin’s city hall attended by nominees such as Jafar Panahi, Stellan Skarsgård and Vicky Krieps as well as honorees Liv Ullmann and Alice Rohrwacher, while Babylon Berlin producer X Filme Creative Pool hosted a dinner at its new Berlin HQ for producers.
The frontrunner in this year’s contest is Norwegian director Joachim Trier’s Cannes Grand Prix winner Sentimental Value, with nominations in the best film, director and screenplay, while co-stars Renate Reinsve and Stellan Skarsgård are nominated for best actress and actor, respectively.
Other strong contenders include Oliver Laxe’s Morocco-set drama Sirāt with four nominations, followed by Mascha Schilinski’s debut film Sound of Falling and Jafar Panahi’s It Was Just An Accident with three nominations each.
Mark Cousins
Le Segretain/Getty Images
Date Change & Revamped Ceremony
This year’s awards are being hailed as a landmark edition.
It is the first edition to take place in January, following a decision to move the event from its traditional December slot, while the ceremony unfolding in Berlin’s House of World Cultures (Haus der Kulteren der Welt), has also been revamped.
Irish Scottish filmmaker Mark Cousins (The Eyes Of Orson Welles, The Storms of Jeremy Thomas) is curating the event, working alongside a creative team also including film composer Dascha Dauenhauer and stage director Robert Lehniger, and has promised “a live film essay” celebrating European cinema.
“It has been quite of a transition year for us,” said Wouter Knol, explaining how the date change also set in motion an overhaul of the three-step selection process. “It’s a complex pan-European process. We have made sure that films were made available much earlier for members. They had a much longer time to watch the films, which is a good thing.”
He suggests the date change is already bearing fruit in terms of getting right-holders and audiences to engage with both the awards and European cinema.
“Now we’re in the middle of the awards season and this is the period of the year in which audiences, not just professionals, are interested in watching nominated films… We’ve seen quite a growth in rights-holders – exhibitors, distributors – organizing special screenings for both European Film Academy members and general audiences,” he said.
“When European films are nominated internationally and in the same period they’re nominated for the European Film Awards, then, let’s promote the films in Europe more as well, or at least make sure that European audiences benefit from the promotion.”
He cites a six-week pilot season at Germany’s Yorck Kino cinema chain showcasing nominated films and introduced by people connected to the productions or EFA members.
“This move wasn’t about putting the awards in the spotlight but rather about putting European cinema more in the spotlight on all levels and the new date seems to be delivering on that,” he said, adding that publicists working on Oscar campaigns also see the European Film Awards as a way to connect with European voters.
He says that EFA held talks with Hollywood awards organizations before settling on the January 17 date, which falls six days after the Golden Globes; one day after voting on nominations for the Academy Awards closed, and as Oscar hopefuls take a breather from campaigning ahead of the nomination announcement on January 22.
“The most important thing for us is that the talent can attending which makes the awarsd show that. Since the beginning before the decision was taken, we were in close touch with the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, Helen Hoehne, and like the whole team behind the Golden Globes, and with the Academy Awards,” he explained.
“With AMPAS, we’ve been speaking from the beginning and saying we wanted to go in this window. We spoke to the festivals surrounding it, including Sundance, which normally starts n the Thursday after this date.”
EFA also canvassed talent agents and producers on the logistics of getting cast and crew to Berlin in this period, and on whether this was feasible, and the conclusion was that this Saturday’s slot made most sense.
Noting that the ceremony alternates between taking place in Berlin and another European city, Wouter Knol said the weekend after the Golden Globes is locked in for the 2027 ceremony in Athens and the 40th edition back in Berlin the following the year.
“We have contracts and this has all been set in motion. The dates are set. We’re already working on both ceremonies,” he explained.
The date is not to everyone’s pleasure, with Unifrance’s Rendez-vous in Paris impacted because the show clashes with its annual press junket this weekend, although journalists attending tonight’s ceremony are expected to pick up the tail-end of the event running through to Tuesday.
“When it comes to industry events, markets, like the Rendez-vous, we’ve also been in touch from the beginning. We both work for the same aim, which is the strengthening of French, which for us is also European cinema. So, I hope and I trust that in conversations with our French colleagues, we’ll find good solutions for the future as well.”
Looking to tonight’s ceremony, Wouter Knol said the event will blend the prize-giving with multi-media tableaus and live performances reflecting on key moments of European film history as well as current themes.
“It will be a visual film essay in itself and glamorous as well because its gala event, with a touch of European chic.”
