Jafar Panahi’s It Was Simply an Accident and Joachim Trier’s Sentimental Worth are amongst 5 titles nominated for Europe’s Lux Viewers Award.
The prize is offered by the European Parliament and the European Movie Academy in partnership with the European Fee and Europa Cinemas.
Each movies are additionally within the working for the 2026 Finest Worldwide Function Movie Oscar, with Panahi’s Cannes Palme d’Or-winning Iranian French Luxembourgish co-production submitted by France, and Trier’s household drama entered by Norway.
The nominated movies additionally embrace Brendan Canty’s Cork-set coming-of-age drama Christy ( UK, Eire), Eva Libertad’s Deaf (Spain), a few deaf girl dealing with motherhood, and Anna Cazenave Cambet’s custody battle story Love Me Tender (France).
The nominees have been unveiled in an announcement on the European Parliament on Tuesday, with the shortlist determined by a committee of European movie professionals over the summer time.
The LUX Viewers Awards is likely one of the solely movie prizes on the earth the place residents vote alongside a democratically elected parliament.
Free screenings of all 5 nominees shall be held within the 27 EU member states from now till April 2026. Residents of those nations, in addition to Members of the European Parliament, can vote for his or her favorite movie on the LUX Viewers Award ranking platform. Their respective votes will every depend 50% in the direction of the movies’ ultimate scores.
A ceremony to announce the 2026 LUX Viewers Award laureate will happen on the European Parliament in Brussels in mid-April 2026.
For the 2025 award, greater than 900 screenings of the shortlisted movies have been organized, with discussions involving greater than 90,000 viewers members. 2025’s winner was Movement by Gints Zilbalodis, which additionally received the 2025 Finest Function Animation Oscar.
Awarded since 2020, the intention of the LUX Viewers Award is to foster dialogue and engagement between politics and the general public, with key themes this 12 months spanning youth and psychological well being, inclusiveness, and democracy.
In different Europe-related awards nomination information on Tuesday, the Arab Critics’ Awards for European Movies additionally unveiled its brief checklist.
Spanish director Libertad’s Deaf additionally featured on this nomination checklist alongside North Macedonian drama DJ Ahmet by Georgi M. Unkovski and Germany-based Syrian filmmaker Ahmet Ameer Fakher Eldin’s Yunan, a few traumatized man who travels to a distant North Sea island to finish his life.
A three way partnership between European Movie Promotion (EFP) and the Arab Cinema Heart (ACC), the prize is voted on by 100 movie critics hailing from 16 Arab nations. The winner shall be unveiled on the El Gouna Movie Pageant in Egypt later this month.
Earlier winners embrace God Exists, Her Title Is Petrunya by Teona Strugar Mitevska (2019), Undine by Christian Petzold (2020), 107 Moms by Peter Kerekes (2021), EO by Jerzy Skolimowski (2022) Fallen Leaves by Aki Kaurismäki (2023) and The Seed of the Sacred Fig by Mohammad Rasoulof (2024).
