The European Film Academy has announced the winners of the 34th European Film Awards in multiple categories. The category that particularly concerned the children’s film industry was the Award for Best European Animated Feature. More than 4,100 academy members voted and FLEE (by Jonas Poher Rasmussen, Denmark) was the winner.
Jonas Poher Rasmussen’s animated documentary FLEE untangles Amin’s memories as he unveils his own story from fleeing Afghanistan as a child to growing up openly gay in Denmark. Other nominated animations were EVEN MICE BELONG IN HEAVEN (by Denisa Grimmová & Jan Bubeníček, Czech Republic), THE APE STAR (by Linda Hämback, Sweden), WHERE IS ANNE FRANK (by Ari Folman, Belgium) and WOLFWALKERS (by Tomm Moore & Ross Stewart, Ireland).
FLEE also won the European University Film Award, an initiative by the European Film Academy and Filmfest Hamburg to involve a younger (university student) audience, and support film dissemination and film education. The nominated films were viewed and discussed in 26 universities in 26 countries and each institution selected its favourite film. One student representative from each university then attended a three-day deliberation meeting to decide on the overall winner.
Winner of the Best European Short Award was MY UNCLE TUDOR (by Olga Lucovnicova, Belgium / Portugal / Hungary). Recently the film – in which Lucovnicova travels back to the house of her great-grandparents to overcome some harmful events from the past – was the topic of an event organised by the Olympia Festival, under the title “Moving forward to eliminate abusive behaviour of adults towards children”. A report + interview with director Olga Lucovnicova will be published in the ECFA Journal.
