The European Film Academy has selected the first 29 productions in the running for the 2024 European Film Awards.
The selection, announced Wednesday, is a list of this year’s festival highlights, including Jacques Audiard, Coralie Fargeat and Yorgos Lanthimos’ Cannes winners Emilia Pérez, The Substance and Kinds of Kindness, respectively; Rich Peppiatt’s Sundance hit Kneecap; and Berlinale favorites Crossing from Levan Akin, The Devil’s Bath from Austrian directors Severin Fiala and Veronika Franz and German melodrama Dying from Matthias Glasner.
By far the most commercially successful title in the selection is Paola Cortellesi’s Italian dramedy There’s Still Tomorrow, which topped the local box office in 2023, selling more tickets in Italy than Barbie did.
To be eligible for the 2024 EFAs, a feature has to have had its first official screening between June 1, 2023 and May 31, 2024 and have a European director. Non-European directors with European refugee status, or those who have lived in Europe and worked in the European film industry for at least five consecutive years, also qualify. So Iranian director Mohammad Rasoulof, who recently escaped Iran and has found refuge in Berlin, is also in the EFA running with his latest, The Seed of the Sacred Fig.
The selection, picked by the EFA board, represents all 26 European countries, including members of the European Union and non-EU nations, such as Turkey (Crossing) and post-Brexit Britain (Andrea Arnold’s Bird). The board is putting forward the titles to the 5,000 voting members of the European Academy as potential nominees for this year’s awards. A second selection of titles will be announced in September.
The nominees for the 2024 European Film Awards will be announced on Nov. 5. The 37th European Film Awards will be held in Lucerne, Switzerland on Dec. 7.