Irish-Scottish filmmaker Mark Cousins will curate the thirty eighth European Movie Awards ceremony to create “a reside movie essay” alongside a artistic crew additionally together with movie composer Dascha Dauenhauer and stage director Robert Lehniger.
The announcement by the European Movie Academy, which oversees the awards, comes because it makes an attempt to reposition and develop the footprint of the European-cinema targeted prizes and occasion inside the wider awards season.
The thirty eighth ceremony will happen on the Home of World Tradition in Berlin on January 17 2026, slightly than its earlier conventional December slot.
The date change first introduced in 2023 to return into power in 2026, means the EFA ceremony will happen simply after the Golden Globes on January 11, and in the course of the Oscar nomination voting interval.
As a part of the revamp, the European Movie Academy mentioned it wished to maneuver away from generic scripts dominated by award classes and acceptance speeches to create an occasion exploring “why can we love cinema?”.
The European Movie Awards is a joint manufacturing between the European Movie Academy and its in-house manufacturing arm, European Movie Academy Productions with Jürgen Biesinger because the present’s main producer.
“Along with Academy President Juliette Binoche and outgoing Chairman Mike Downey, now we have labored prior to now yr to fulfil our shared want to create a extra idiosyncratic type to have fun European cinema,” mentioned European Movie Academy Director Matthijs Wouter Knol.
“Cinema has been born in Europe. And Europe repeatedly kinds the supply of recent worldwide expertise, daring storytelling and technical innovation, that each one impression the photographs we see. Having the ability to work now with Robert, Dascha and Mark is a crucial step to create an occasion that may’t be missed.”
Mark Cousins is finest identified for his documentary movies which embrace the 15-hour The Story of Movie: An Odyssey (2011) and Ladies Make Movie: A New Street Film By means of Cinema (2019), which was awarded the European Movie Award for Progressive Storytelling in 2020.
Extra just lately, his movie The March On Rome was nominated for Finest European Documentary on the thirty fifth European Movie Awards. His final work, A Sudden Glimpse To Deeper Issues, about artist Wilhelmina Barns-Graham, received the Crystal Globe for finest movie in Karlovy Range in 2024.
Cousins co-directed plenty of modern staged movie occasions with Tilda Swinton with whom he additionally initiated the 8 1/2 Basis, aiming to hyperlink kids to the world of cinema.
“I like taking part in with the type of movie occasions, so I jumped on the likelihood to be a part of the European Movie Awards’ night. We hope to have some surprises. We’ll attempt to conjure cinematic photographs, feelings and concepts. I’m honoured to work with Robert, Dascha and the Academy crew, in a constructing I’ve lengthy admired,” mentioned Cousins.
Moscow-born Berlin-based composer Dauenhauer received a European Movie Award for her authentic rating for Berlin Alexanderplatz (Burhan Qurbani, 2020) and most just lately, her second German Movie Award for her rating for Jan-Ole Gerster’s Islands (2025).
Her different works embrace the scores for Evolution (Kornél Mundruczó, 2021), Golda (Man Nattiv, 2023) and Tatami (Man Nattiv and Zar Amir Ebrahimi, 2024).
German-born Lehniger is a theatre director and video artist who has labored all through the German, Swiss and Austrian theatre panorama. His work is characterised by way of digital media together with stage efficiency, bridging the hole between theatre and cinema.
Amongst his many productions fuelled by his ardour for cinema are The Dreamers (2009), primarily based on the novel by Gilbert Adair, Week Finish (2010), impressed by Jean-Luc Godard’s eponymous 1967 function, and Katzelmacher impressed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s 1969 movie.
Since 2022, he has additionally been the Principal of the MetFilm Faculty in Berlin. He additionally already oversaw the stage path of the European Movie Awards in 2023.
A shortlist of 67 movies eligible to be nominated for the 2026 awards was introduced on October 14.
They are going to be voted on in 23 classes by the European Movie Academy’s 5,400 members over the approaching weeks, with the principle nominations introduced on November 18 in the course of the twenty second Seville European Movie Competition in Spain.
