About the ECFA Award
With the ECFA Award, ECFA both gives special attention to quality films for a young audience and shines a spotlight on European children’s films.
A number of European children & youth film festivals, all members of ECFA, are selected annually to host an ECFA jury and vote for the ECFA Award for their particular festival. Each festival adds their wining film to a shortlist of nominated films, competing for the overall award.
The final vote is open to all ECFA members, choosing the ‘Best European Children’s Film of the Year’.
The award is handed out during the International Filmfestival Berlin – Berlinale.
The ECFA Award was launched in 2011. There is no money prize connected to the ECFA Award. However, it is the only European children’s film award given out by professionals so the value and prestige of this award can’t be underestimated.
About the ECFA Doc Award
With the ECFA Doc Award, ECFA gives special attention to European quality documentaries produced for a young audience, promoting this specific genre towards audiences and festivals.
The ECFA Award follows a nominations and election procedure, parallel with the general ECFA Award. The final vote is open to all ECFA members, choosing the ‘Best European Young Audience Documentary of the Year’. The award is handed out during the International Filmfestival Berlin – Berlinale.
The ECFA Doc Award was launched in 2016, in cooperation with doxs!, the young audience festival within the Duisburger Filmwoche (Germany). In organising this prize, ECFA is working to raise awareness about documentary movies for a young audience, stimulate the debate and work towards a better European spreading of documentary films.
About the ECFA Short Film Award
The idea of awarding European Short Films with a ECFA Short Film Award, instigated by the Internationale Kurzfilmtage Oberhausen, fits into ECFA’s ambition to recognize short films as a valuable aspect of European children’s film culture and to raise awareness about the short film genre among children’s film professionals. This was also the reason for adding an online short film database to ECFA’s film databases.
The ECFA Short Film Award follows a nominations and election procedure, parallel with the general ECFA Award. The final vote is open to all ECFA members, choosing the ‘Best European Young Audience Short Film of the Year’. The award is handed out during the International Berlinale Film Festival.
The ECFA Short Film Award was launched at the Oberhausen festival, edition 2018. ECFA hopes to see many children’s film festivals joining this initiative, thus bringing ECFA members together to exchange and discuss their short film expertise in the context of a festival jury.