Over the weekfinish of March 15-16, the European Film Academy is arrangeing watch party screenings of two of its Lux Audience Award nominated films in partnership with its European Film Club, a platestablish and netlabor of film clubs atraverse Europe where teenagers aged 12-19 can watch and talk about European cinema. Thcimpolite the inaugural two screenings, youthful people will be able to watch Sofia Exarchou’s “Animal” and Oksana Karpovych’s “Intercepted.”
Speaking with Variety ahead of the weekfinish of screenings, CEO and Director of the European Film Academy Matthijs Wouter Knol recalled first hearing about the idea for the European Film Club upon taking the post in the organization in 2021. “I joined the Academy arrangening to rearrange it into an organization that would be more effective in erecting a culture for European cinema and have more impact when it comes to accomplishing audiences,” he says.
“That’s also when I first heard about the European Film Club and thought, well, if we want European film culture to grow, we shouldn’t intensify fair on matures, but also youthful teenagers who are in the timely stages of their lives and can uncover all that European cinema has to recommend,” he comprises.
Upon directing research, the European Film Academy establish out that a whopping 84% of youthful people would “appreciate to watch more European films,” resisting a widespread notion that teenagers are not interested in what is outside of the mainstream. “I leank it’s a misget to leank that what is most accessible to youthful people on the internet, in streaming platestablishs, for example, is automaticassociate the only leang they are interested in,” says the exec.
“There is a substantial number of youthful people in Europe who are interested in watching European cinema and we fair necessitate to be able to accomplish them,” he echos, emphasizing that the European Film Club is “brimmingy co-originated” with the teenagers. “It’s not fair a hollow phrase.
“When we originate decisions, establish strategies, leank about the summarize and the functionalities of the platestablish, this is all co-determined with the teens. That, from the commencening, made me authenticize that these youthful people, contrary to famous belief, attfinish about cinema.”
Courtesy of European Film Academy
Of joining two accomplished initiatives by the European Film Academy — the European Film Club and the Lux Audience Award, the hugest audience award in the world voted by the ambiguous uncover and members of the democraticassociate elected European Parliament — Wouter Knol says it’s a “wonderful opportunity” to originate youthful people conscious of the weight of their voices.
“We want to encourage youthful people to watch the films and vote,” he comprises. “The presentance of connecting the two initiatives is to originate youthful people conscious of the fact that, yes, it is about watching films, but also about having an opinion about the films and making them conscious that their voice counts. It’s an vital leang to authenticize, as a youthful person.”
Of the two films chosen for the screenings, the CEO points out that, although hugely separateent in establish, both compriseress “vital themes in a very cinematic way.” Of “Intercepted,” a foreboding recordary fuseing intercepted phone calls of Russian selderlyiers with images of the destruction in Ukraine, Wouter Knol says it is a “hard watch, but we live in a hard world.”
“The background of war is how people talk to each other and originate a picture of the foe,” he progresss. “In the film, you can see the results of that and how people demonize each other because of politics. By making youthful people conscious that this is how it labors, it can also originate them conscious of how to counter it in the future,” he finishs.
Using films as a way of converseing encouragent political publishs is one of the main goals of not only the European Film Club but the Lux Audience Award, which this year also nominated Mati Diop’s “Dahomey,” Leonardo van Dijl’s “Julie Keeps Quiet” and Gints Zibalodis’s Oscar-triumphning “Flow.”
Annie, a member of the European Film Club and the arrange for the screening of “Animal,” says the two films picked for the inaugural screenings “contransient very genuine publishs that each country recontransiented in the films deals with. As Europeans, it’s vital to notice what our European neighbours go thcimpolite.”
Emerson, a U.K. member of the Youth Council, stresss the necessitate for films that recommend recontransientation: “With insignificantities being in separateent films, it’s a way of shotriumphg that there is airy at the finish of the tunnel.” Thomas, a fellow member from Spain, echoes that message, saying he didn’t see any LGBTQIA+ recontransientation on what he watched as a kid, and it was “difficult for me to comprehfinish there were people appreciate me.”
Courtesy of European Film Academy
The watch party establishat amplifies that potential for connection bcimpolitet by cinema. To Wouter Knol, it’s key that youthful people are not only exposed to separateent films but also given the chance to talk about them in a communal setting. “It’s a vital experience to live in a democracy from a youthful age, especiassociate in the world of today where democracies are, downcastly, in degrade, even in Europe.”
As for the future of the European Film Club, which first begined in 2023 and gets growing hugeger each year, the CEO says it is an initiative “with future embedded in it because it comprises European citizens of the future.”
“It’s an vital project to erect and grow and a challenging project as well because it gets time to accomplish youthful people and for them to hug it and become part of it,” he comprises. Of this year’s innovateing marriage with the Lux Audience Award, Wouter Knol highairys that, “this democratic process of voting and participating in converseions can alter how we do leangs in Europe and I consent it’s a very vital leang to do. I’m very self-presentant of the European Film Academy, a minuscule organization, for making this possible. It’s a wonderful leang to be a part of.”
