European Film Awards Reveal 2024 Documentary Shortlist

The European Film Academy has unveiled its shortlist of 12 documentaries in the running for this year’s European Film Awards.

The 12 feature docs include recent winners in Sundance, Berlin, and Locarno and represent a cross-section of European filmmakers. Among the more high-profile titles on the list are Mati Diop’s Dahomey , which looks at the return of plundered African treasures to Benin as a way of examining the enduring impact of colonialism; Johan Grimonprez’s Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat , a world cinema jury award winner in Sundance, which sets the struggle for Congolese independence to a jazz soundtrack, examining how the U.S. used music ambassadors like Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington and Nina Simone to build goodwill with the Congo while carrying out operations to destabilize the region; and No Other Land , from directors Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor, Basel Adra, and Hamdan Ballal, an examination of a West Bank’s village by Israeli soldiers, which won Berlin’s documentary prize.

Swiss filmmaker Nicole Vögele has two docs in contention: The Landscape and the Fury , a look at the struggles of refugees on the Bosnian-Croatian border, which took the Grand Jury Prize at the Swiss doc festival Vision du Reel, and her upcoming non-fiction feature The Words Women Spoke One Day .

Other European Film Award documentary contenders include Averroes & Rosa Parks from French director Nicolas Philibert, Bye Bye Tiberias from Lina Soualem, Alina Maksimenko’s In Limbo , Marching in the Dark from director Kinshuk Surjan, Farahnaz Sharifi’s My Stolen Planet , László Csáki’s Pelikan Blue , and Direct Action from directors Guillaume Cailleau and Ben Russell.

To be eligible, the films had to have their first official screening between June 1, 2023 and May 31, 2024, and be directed by a European filmmaker. The 5,000 members of the European Film Academy will watch the selected documentaries over the coming months and vote for the final nominees, which will be announced on Nov. 5. The winners of this year’s European Film Awards will be announced at an awards ceremony on December 7th in Lucerne, Switzerland.

Source: The Hollywood Reporter, Variety