Seville, 5 November



At the Seville European Film Festival, the European Film Academy and EFA Productions announced the nominations for the 24th European Film Awards. Leading the field is MELANCHOLIA , Lars von Trier’s compelling film about the end of the world, with eight nominations, followed by five films with four nominations each: THE ARTIST by Michel Hazanavicius, an elegant homage to Hollywood’s silent film era, the neorealist drama THE KID WITH A BIKE by Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne, the drama IN A BETTER WORLD by Susanne Bier, THE KING’S SPEECH by Tom Hooper and LE HAVRE by Aki Kaurismäki.

All six movies garnered a nomination for European Film. Nominated for European Director are Jean-Pierre Dardenne, Aki Kaurismäki and Lars von Trier, all of them received additional nominations for European Screenwriter.

The remaining nominations for European Director went to Susanne Bier for IN A BETTER WORLD (the film also received an European Screenwriter nomination for Anders Thomas Jensen) and to Béla Tarr for THE TURIN HORSE (which received additional nominations for cinematographer Fred Kelemen and composer Migály Víg).

Further nominees for MELANCHOLIA are cinematographer Manuel Alberto Claro, editor Molly Malene Stensgaard and production designer Jette Lehmann.

Actor nominations went to Colin Firth as King George V in THE KING’S SPEECH, Jean Dujardin as a struggling silent film star in THE ARTIST, Mikael Persbrandt as a torn father in IN A BETTER WORLD, André Wilms as a shoe-shiner in LE HAVRE, as well as Michel Piccoli for his role as the Pope in Nanni Moretti’s tragic comedy HABEMUS PAPAM .

Nominated actresses include both MELANCHOLIA’s Kirsten Dunst and Charlotte Gainsbourg as sisters Justine and Claire, Cécile de France as a kind-hearted foster mother in THE KID WITH A BIKE, Nadezhda Markina in the title role of Russian family drama ELENA , as well as Tilda Swinton as a traumatized mother in WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN .

THE KING’S SPEECH is also nominated for European Editor (Tariq Anwar) and European Composer (Alexandre Desplat); additional nominations for THE ARTIST are for cinematographer Guillaume Schiffman and composer Ludovic Bource.

Nominated as European Production Designer are Paola Bizzarri for HABEMUS PAPAM, Jette Lehmann for MELANCHOLIA and Antxón Gómez for Pedro Almodóvar’s psycho thriller LA PIEL QUE HABITO (the latter film received an additional nomination for composer Alberto Iglesias).

One nomination each received Tom Tykwer’s relationship comedy THREE for editor Mathilde Bonnefoy and Jerzy Skolimoskwi’s escape thriller ESSENTIAL KILLING for cinematographer Adam Sikora.

The 2,500 EFA Members will now vote for the winners which will be presented during the awards ceremony on 3 December in Berlin.

See the complete list of nominations here