"The Room Next Door" and "Emilia Perez" lead the EFA Nominations

by Nathaniel R

Nominations are in the for 37th annual European Film Awards which will take place on December 7th in approximately one month's time. You may recall that last year was dominated by Anatomy of a Fall which took home six awards (Film, Director, Actress, Screenplay, and special awards like Editing and the European University Film Award). It also proved popular with Oscar voters. Here are your nominees for the 2024 prizes. The awards ceremony moves each year. In December it moves to Switzerland for the first time. Oscar hopefuls The Room Next Door (hitting US theaters in December) and Emilia Perez (which hits Netflix next week) lead the nominations with four citations each. International Feature Film Oscar contenders like Denmark’s The Girl with the Needle, Germany’s The Seed of the Sacred Fig, Italy’s Vermiglio, Latvia’s Flow, Norway’s Armand and Senegal’s Dahomey were also popular with voters, scoring multiple nominations. 

Although people don't tend to think of the EFAs as an Oscar precursor, their collective taste does align fairly well with Oscar voters. It's been 9 years, for example since the winning film wasn't also Oscar nominated for either Best Picture and/or Best International Feature Film...

That unlucky film was Paolo Sorrentino's Youth (2015) which garnered a little buzz for Jane Fonda's lengthy cameo but had to settle for only a Best Original Song nomination at the Oscars.You have to go back even further, to 2011's divisive but high profile winner Melacholia to find a champ at the European Film Awards that received zero Oscar nods afterwards. But stats can always change and they've definitely changed some sort of rule to end up with triple (!) the amount of Best Film nominees.

EUROPEAN FILM
(If there's a link it'll take you to our review).

• Bye Bye Tiberias (France, Belgium, Palestine, Qatar)
  This documentary about the actress Hiam Abbas was Palestine's Oscar submission last season and also eligible in Best Documentary Feature last year (though it didn't score either nomination). So it's not eligible this year.
• Dahomey (France, Senegal)
  This documentary about African museum pieces in France is Senegal's Oscar submission this year.
• Emilia Perez (France)
  The Spanish language trans musical is winning lots of Oscar buzz. It's France's Oscar submission this year and arrives on Netflix November 13.
• Flow (Latvia, France, Belgium)
  This dialogue-free animated adventure about a cat hopes to follow in the footsteps of Flee and receive nominations for both Best Animated Feature and Best International Feature at the Oscars
• In Limbo -(Poland)
  A documentary about a woman (the director) and her family trapped in Kiev during the Russian invasion
• Living Large (Czech Republic, France, Slovakia)
  A Czech animated feature about an boy who is bullied for his weight.
• No Other Land (Palestine, Norway)
  A documentary about a Palestine activist and an Israeli journalist and the decimation of the West Bank.
• Savages (Switzerland, France, Belgium)
  A French language animated feature about two children and a baby orangutan in the forest.
• Soundtrack to a Coup D’Etat (France, Belgium, Netherlands)
  A documentary about decolonization in the Congo. It just hit theaters.
• Sultana’s Dream (Spain, Germany, India)
  An animated feature about a search for a utopia for women in India.
• The Room Next Door (Spain)
  Pedro Almodovar's first English language feature opens in December. Can he finally make the Best Picture list? We always wonder how close Talk To Her (2002) got given its other nominations. 
• The Seed of the Sacred Fig (Germany, France)
  Germany's suspenseful slow burn about an Iranian family in turmoil --set around  the time of student protests and hijab burnings in Tehran --is expected to be an Oscar player, too. Opens soon in the US.
• The Substance (UK, US, France)
  Currently streaming on MUBI.
• They Shot the Piano Player (Spain, France, Netherlands, Portugal, Peru)
  This was eligible for the Oscars last season in both Animated Feature and Documentary Feature and wasn't nominated so it's not eligible this year.
• Vermiglio (Italy, France, Belgium)
  Italy's magnificent Oscar submission this season. Opens in the US in December. 

A staggering 15 films are nominated. What gives? It’s always been 5 in the past. The most high profile titles to be snubbed in all EFA categories this season despiting making the Best Feature longlist were Yorgos Lanthimos' Kinds of Kindness and Mike Leigh's Hard Truths.

EUROPEAN ACTRESS

• Reinata Reinsve (Norway)  - Armand
• Karla Sofia Gascon (Spain) - Emilia Perez
• Trine Dyrholm (Denmark) - The Girl with the Needle
• Vic Carmen Sonne (Denmark) - The Girl with the Needle
• Tilda Swinton (UK) - The Room Next Door

The Girl with the Needle and Armand both received multiple nominations from the European Film Academy but curiously dont show up in that Best Film list even with 15 titles represented. 

Bummer to not have Marianne Jean-Baptiste in this list for Hard Truths. (Demi Moore was not eligible being American.)

EUROPEAN ACTOR

• Franz Rogowski (Germany) - Bird
• Ralph Fiennes (UK) - Conclave
• Lars Eidinger (Germany) - Dying
• Daniel Craig (UK) - Queer
• Abou Sangare (France) - Souleymane’s Story

Only Bird scored in another category as well. The rest of these are single nominations for their films. 

EUROPEAN DIRECTOR

• Andrea Arnold (UK) - Bird
• Jacques Audiard (France) - Emilia Perez
• Pedro Almodovar (Spain)  - The Room Next Door
• Maura Delpero (Italy) - Vermiglio
• Mohammad Rasoulof (Germany) - The Seed of the Sacred Fig

Curiously despite an enormous list of 15 nominees in the corresponding Best Feature Film nominations, Bird wasn't one of them.

EUROPEAN SCREENWRITER

• Emilia Perez - Jacques Audiard
• The Girl with the Needle - Magnus Von Horn & Line Langebek
• The Room Next Door -Pedro Almodovar
• The Seed of the Sacred Fig - Mohammad Rasoulof
• The Substance - Coralie Fargeat

A big get here for Coralie Fargeat who is having a breakout year with her camp body horror sensation The Substance.

EUROPEAN DISCOVERY - PRIX FIPRESCI

• Armand - Halfdan Ullman Tondel (Norway)
• Hoard - Luna Carmoon (UK)
• Kneecap - Rich Peppiatt (UK)
• Santosh - Sandhya Suri (UK)
• The New Year That Never Came - Bogdan Muresanu (Romania)
• Toxic - Saule Bliuvaite (Lithuania)

This is kind of a "best debut" prize though sometimes they've made other films. Halfdan Ullman Tondel is the grandson of film legends Liv Ullmann and Ingmar Bergman and back in May he won the Camera D'Or at Cannes for his debut feature. Santosh, the UK's Oscar submission was not on the longlist for Best Film but scored here.

EUROPEAN DOCUMENTARY

• Bye Bye Tiberias (Lina Soualem) -not eligible at the Oscars
• Dahomey (Mati Diop)
• In Limbo (Alina Maksimenko)
• No Other Land (Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szar, Basel Adra, Hamdan Ballal)
• Soundtrack to a Coup D’Etat (Johan Grimonprez)

All of them are also nominated in Best European Film. Will most of them be on the eligible Documentary long list for Oscar?

EUROPEAN ANIMATED FEATURE

• Flow
• Living Large
• Savages
• Sultana’s Dream
• They Shot the Piano Player - not eligible at the Oscars

All of them are also nominated in Best European Film. It's always a surprise which international animated films show up on Oscar's eligibility list since their releases are usually qualifying only in the US. Flow obviously will be... but the others?  

SPECIAL PRIZES

EUROPEAN YOUNG AUDIENCE AWARD

• Lars is Lol (Norway, Denmark) - Eirik Saeter Stordahl
  This one is about a little girl tasked with watching out for a classmate who has Down syndrome.
• The Remarkable Life of Ibelin (Norway) - Benjamin Ree
  A documentary about a young gamer (currently streaming on Netflix)
• Winners (Germany) - Spleen Yusef 
  A drama about a Kurdish refugee attending school in Germany who has a gift for football.

EUROPEAN UNIVERSITY FILM AWARD (EUFA)

• April (Georgia) Dea Kulumbegashvili
• Armand (Norway) Halfdan Ullmann Tondel
• Kneecap (Ireland) Rich Peppiatt - The only EFA nomination for Ireland's Oscar submission.
• Three Kilometers to the End of the World (Romania) Emanuel Parvu - The only EFA nomination for Romania's Oscar submission.

LUX EUROPEAN AUDIENCE AWARD

• Animal (Greece) - This one is about a "wild summer" under the hot Greek sun at the Hotel Mirage.
• Dahomey (Senegal)
• Flow (Latvia)
• Intercepted (Canada/France/Ukraine) A documentary about the war in Ukraine.
• Julie Keeps Quiet (Belgium) - The only EFA nomination for Belgium's Oscar submission which is a sports drama about a scandal in a tennis school.

EUROPEAN SHORT FILM

• 2720 (Portugal/Switzerland)
  A documentary short about an ex-con's first day on the job after prison. 24 minutes
• Clamor (France)
  A drama about cousins who fall in love in the South of France. 25 minutes
• The Exploding Girl (France)
  An animated short about a girl who detonates seven times a day. 19 minutes
• The Man Who Could Not Remain Silent (Croatia)
  We are just starting to investigate Oscar qualifying shorts behind the scenes. This one is excellent. It's a riveting taught drama based on a true story about a train that makes an unexpected stop and the passengers are terrified. 13 minutes.
• Wander to Wonder (Netherlands/UK)
  An animated short about a children's television program in the 1980s. From Nina Gantz who won a BAFTA for her short Edmond. 14 minutes

LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARDS

• Wim Wenders (Germany)
• Isabella Rossellini (Italy)

 

Comments

[Robert G]

Oh, the EFAs are taking The Substance. As they should. Keep that film in the conversation.

[Fabio Dantas Flappers]

Dreaming with Swinton and Moore getting the nomination, preferably both as Leading Actress.

[Cláudio Alves]

Robert G -- I'm starting to wonder if I might have underestimated its awards chances. I'm so used to horror being overlooked but...maybe not this time? One can hope.

Fabio Dantas Flappers - They are both campaigning as lead actresses. Indeed, they are submitted like that for the Golden Globes, so I can confirm that's Sony Pictures Classics' official strategy for now. It would be preposterous if one of them went supporting.

[Gallavich]

RobertG- in 2021 they awarded 3 horror movies

[Thomas Daniel]

This is an excellent breakdown of the 37th Annual European Film Awards nominations! You've captured the excitement and diversity of this year’s contenders perfectly. It's so refreshing to see how the EFA continues to spotlight a broad range of films, from bold social documentaries like Dahomey and Soundtrack to a Coup D’Etat to the high-profile narrative features such as Emilia Perez and The Room Next Door. I especially appreciate your insights on the surprising number of Best European Film nominees—15 is a huge shift from previous years, and it really opens up the conversation to a wider array of voices and genres.

The mention of the snubs like Kinds of Kindness and Hard Truths is an interesting point too; it’s always fascinating to see how the EFA votes differ from what’s expected. Your enthusiasm for the animated category is contagious, and I'm also looking forward to seeing how films like Flow perform in the international awards race.

Overall, this post beautifully highlights the range and depth of European Maxim Time Clock cinema in 2024 and sets the stage for what promises to be a very exciting awards season. Keep up the great work!

[pascal le]

As for the 15 nominees in best film, the new rule starting this season is simple : all nominees in documentaries and animation are automatically added to the 5 fiction non animated films so that both categories are not limited to their "ghetto" categories. A weird way to add a variety of genres and ways of filming, but that's the idea. Now, animated films and documentaries can be named best movie of the year. But it's really odd to do it that way.