European Film Awards (EFA) Move to January 2026 in the Heart of Awards Season
The European Film Awards (EFA), the European Film Academy’s annual award ceremony celebrating the best of European cinema, is about to become a part of the January awards corridor.
After the 37th edition in December 2024, the 38th edition will take place in the weekend after the Golden Globes – which is Sunday, January 4 – and prior to the closing of the nomination voting for the Oscars. European films vying for one of the European Film Awards will be able to optimize promotion and marketing in Europe and beyond its borders for the international awards season, increasing their visibility in the same period of the year.
The date change is the next step in the repositioning and rebranding process of the event and the work of the European Film Academy. With the European Film Awards moving a month later to the beginning of the calendar year, European nominees and winners will be featured much more visibly within the international awards season including the Oscars.
The European Film Awards will continue to be announced by mid-November each year, but the date change will create a larger window for nominated films to be promoted. Academy members eligible to vote will be able to watch the films on the Academy VOD platform, or in cinema screenings if the nominated films are released during this period or a part of programmes the Academy organizes itself, the Month of European Film.
“European cinema is one of the great dominant creative and cultural forces in the global cinema hierarchy,” says the European Film Academy’s Chair of the board, Mike Downey, “The decision of the board to re-position the European Film Awards after almost four decades in December marks a fundamentally positive change as the event finally lands where it should be: front and centre in the heart of the awards season, where it can create maximum impact for European candidates, as well as enhance the Academy’s role as a significant player in the global awards game. This change puts the European Film Awards and, indeed, the best of European cinema in pole position during what is always a highly competitive awards period.”
Matthijs Wouter Knol, CEO and Director of the European Film Academy adds: “It’s time for the European Film Awards to take a step up. The date change automatically means a prolongation of our new initiative Month of European Film, the season at the end of the calendar year during which the Academy celebrates European cinema in 45 countries simultaneously. In the next years, we will develop this programme into a proper award season for films from Europe. After the season has been established on our continent first, we are keen to explore strategic collaborations and reach audiences in other parts of the world as of 2026. Fans of European films live everywhere. We want to make people aware that European cinema exists, that it can be discovered more easily. We’d like to offer European cinema where people prefer watching films – from cinemas to streaming platforms.”
The decision resulted after ample consideration and ongoing conversations between The European Film Academy and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association and BAFTA, as well as the management of festivals such as Sundance, Göteborg, Rotterdam, and the Berlinale, that all take place shortly after the future European Film Awards weekend.
Last year, Emilia Pérez was the big EFA winner, taking European Film, European Director, European Actress for Karla Sofía Gascón, and European Screenwriter; the same awards as Justine Triet’s Palme d’Or-winning courtroom drama Anatomy of a Fall the previous year. Emilia Pérez went onto earn 13 Oscar nominations, the most of any film of the season, and win two: Supporting Actress for Zoe Saldaña and Original Song for “El Mal.”
He is a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic, accredited by the Cannes Film Festival, Telluride Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival and more, is a member of the International Cinephile Society (ICS), The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics (GALECA), Critics Choice Association (CCA), San Francisco Bay Area Film Critics Circle (SFBAFCC) and the International Press Academy. Among his many achieved goals with AwardsWatch, he has given a platform to underrepresented writers and critics and supplied them with access to film festivals and the industry and calls the Bay Area his home where he lives with his husband and son.
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