The European Film Academy (EFA) is touting as a success its “month of European film” program, a pan-national screening event celebrating European cinema, as it outlines plans for an U.S.-style awards season for the old continent.
Nearly half a million viewers caught last year’s month of European film program, which ran in some 108 theaters across 42 European countries, a huge jump from 2022, the first year of the event, which recorded 61,000 admissions across 35 partners in 35 countries.
The month of European film was set up as a means to attract more attention to European films which suffer from a gap between their critical acclaim — see this year’s European Oscar nominees and winners, including Emilia Pérez, Flow, Conclave, September 5 and The Girl With the Needle — and box office performance. While Europe continues to deliver local-language hits — Spanish comedy Padre no hay más que uno 4, or French period drama The Count of Monte Cristo — Hollywood imports dominate and cross-border success is rare.
“With the month of European film we [are building] a network and a window for the simultaneous celebration of European cinema and to bring the diversity of European film closer to home for many people,” said European Film Academy CEO Matthijs Wouter Knol. “Only three years into the initiative we are proud and happy that the month of European film is becoming more and more visible across Europe and is attracting a significantly growing number of visitors from Norway to Malta, from Portugal to Georgia.”
Longer-term, the EFA is positioning the annual event as the start of a European “awards season,” which would see a focus on the best in European cinema, leading up to the European Film Awards ceremony, which for the first time in 2026, will be held in January, placing it ahead of the BAFTAs and the Oscars.
“In the upcoming years until the European Film Academy’s 40th anniversary in 2028, we will further build a European ‘award season’ with our partners,” said Knol. “It is time to deepen the awareness of European film culture. It is time to bring us as Europeans closer together through the culture and values we share: cinema has that power.”
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