European Film Award Nominations. Good news for 8 Oscar contenders
Sunday, November 6, 2016 at 7:03PM
NATHANIEL R in A Man Called Ove, Cristian Mungiu, EFA, Elle, Fire at Sea, I Daniel Blake, Julieta, Olli Mäki, Oscars (16), Pedro Almodóvar, Toni Erdmann, foreign films

The Precursors are coming! The Precursors are coming! Though the European Film Awards hardly have Oscar on their minds when they vote (bless them) it's all part of the grand circus of November-February honors to commemorate each film year. Several European films hoping to score Oscar nods in the Foreign Language Film race have reason to be hopeful given their warm embrace here.

The following eight titles that the Academy is currently considering for that particular honor scored EFA nominations: Spain's Julieta, Germany's Toni Erdmann, France's Elle, Italy's Fire at Sea, Finland's The Happiest Days in the Life of Olli Makki, Sweden's A Man Called Ove, Israel's Sand Storm, and Switzerland's animated film My Life as a Courgette

Other familiar titles on the list include the British Palme D'Or winner I Daniel Blake, potential mainstream Oscar player Florence Foster Jenkins, and last year's awesome mother/son captivity drama Room (we're reminded again that it was an Irish production!).

If the title has a link below we've reviewed it.

BEST EUROPEAN FILM

BEST EUROPEAN DIRECTOR

Pedro Almodóvar has won three directing EFAs in the past for All About My Mother, Talk to Her and Volver and two additional nominations prior to Julieta in Bad Education and Broken Embraces. But i expect this prize is going to Maren Ade.

BEST EUROPEAN ACTOR

The least familiar title here is Truman a buddy dramedy with Argentinian superstar Ricardo Darín and Spain's Javier Cámara (nominated) who is an Almodóvar regular. It's nice to Hugh Grant here for his wonderful work in FFJ

BEST EUROPEAN ACTRESS

Fun that they let Suárez and Ugarte share the Best Actress nomination (they share the title character in Julieta at two different ages played concurrently as the film jumps back and forth between present and past) something you regularly see at the Tonys and which the cast of Moonlight surely wishes they could do this year with Oscar. 

Thrilled to see Trine Dyrholm honored --she's just fiercely engaged with the emotionally thorny material in The Commune.

BEST EUROPEAN SCREENWRITER

Interesting that Graduation did well. Mungiu's latest lost the Oscar submission contest to represent Romania (they sent Sieranevada instead) but the EFA's love Mungiu. He's been nominated twice in the past for Screenplay (4 Months 3 Weeks and 2 Days and Beyond the Hills)

BEST EUROPEAN DOCUMENTARY

Fire at Sea is eligible for nominations in both Best Documentary and Best Foreign Language Film at the Oscars. No film has ever managed both nominations though perhaps Waltz With Bashir (2008) came close. Read Jose's interview with Gianfraco Rosi. 

BEST EUROPEAN ANIMATED FEATURE

Psiconautus, the Forgotten Children is the title we weren't familiar with so there's the trailer. 

BEST EUROPEAN COMEDY

FIPRESCI PRIZE – BEST EUROPEAN DISCOVERY

EUROPEAN UNIVERSITY FILM AWARD

BEST EUROPEAN SHORT

Will we see any of these on Oscar's finalist list for live action nominations?

Article originally appeared on The Film Experience (http://thefilmexperience.net/).
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