by Nathaniel R
Each year European Film Promotion highlights ten up and coming stars of European film and television. Variety co-hosts their annual event which runs from February 23rd-25th (mostly virtual this year of course). Here are the recipients this year, a couple of which we were already familiar with though the others are new to us. We'll always take an opportunity to get to know new actors.
If you are an international reader and are familiar with these talents, tell us your impressions of these rising actors in the comments...
ALBA BAPTISTA 🇵🇹
She's currently Netflix's Warrior Nun and previously co-starred in Equinocio and Fatima. Next up: another season of Warrior Nun. But also, and this is exciting, Mrs Harris Goes to Paris starring Lesley Manville as a cleaning woman in 1950s London who obsesses over a haute couture dress.
SEIDI HAARIA 🇫🇮
This actress/playwright has appeared in TV shows (Love & Order) and movies (Force of Habit). Next up: Compartment No. 6 which will premiere this summer at Cannes. It's from the Finnish director Juho Kuosmanen (The Happiest Day in the Life of Olli Maki)
ŽYGIMANTE ELENA JAKŠTAITE 🇱🇹
She's already had over twenty stage roles including major productions at the National Theatre of Lithuania. Next up her first leading film role in the Lithuanian-Czech coproduction Runner.
SARA KLIMOSKA 🇲🇰
She recently starred in both a Sundance short winner Would You Look at Her, and North Macedonia's Oscar submission this year Willow. Next up: Focus Feature's You Won't Be Alone which is a supernatural horror films set in the 19800s in Macedonia with a sensational international cast which also includes Romania's Anamaria Marinca, Australia's Alice Englert, Sweden's Noomi Rapace, and France's Félix Maritaud.
MARTIN LAKEMEIER 🇳🇱
As a teenager he won Best Actor in his home country for Netherland's Oscar finalist Winter in Wartime (2008). He's now 27 and has since co-starred in series Dutch Hope and Blackpills and Doostil and the feature Tout La-Haut. Next up: the war drama The East (co-starring Marwen Kenzari).
GUSTAV LINDH 🇸🇪
You might remember him as the teenager that the middle-aged protagonist sleeps with in Denmark's Oscar submission last year Queen of Hearts. He's also previously co-starred in Levan Akin's fantasy The Circle, and the tv series Jordskott. Next up: Robert Eggers The Northman with Nicole Kidman and Stellan Skarsgård in the lead roles.
NICOLAS MAURY 🇫🇷
This French actor/director is best known for the TV series Call My Agent! and Let My People Go! (Best known for two things with exclamation points in the title so we hope he lives up to that excitement). His feature directorial debut My Best Part was nominated for a César for Best First Film this week.
FIONN O'SHEA 🇮🇪
You surely know this Irishman's face already as the bad boyfriend in Normal People as well as the star of the boarding school drama Handsome Devil and recent LGBT festival film Dating Amber. Next up: Cherry with Tom Holland.
ALBRECHT SCHUCH 🇩🇪
What a roll he's on. The 35 year old actor won both the lead and supporting statues at the German Film Award last season for System Crasher (with Helena Zengel) and Berlin Alexanderplatz (an Oscar finalist for submission this season). Next up: the TV series Paradiso and two more German films Fabian and Schachnovelle.
NATASA STORK ðŸ‡ðŸ‡º
She was previously best known for her stage work but just starred in Hungary's Oscar submission, Preparations to be Together for an Unknown Period of Time. Next up: She's currently filming the Hungarian movie Veszélyes lehet a fagyi