European Film Awards Unveil 2023 Short And Animated Feature Nominees

The European Film Academy has unveiled the nominees for this year’s European short and animated feature film categories.

European Animated Feature Nominees

• A Greyhound of a Girl, Enzo d’Alò (Luxembourg, Italy, Ireland, U.K., Latvia, Estonia, Germany)
• Chicken for Linda!, Chiara Malta and Sébastien Laudenbach (France, Italy)
• Robot Dreams, Pablo Berger (Spain, France)
• The Amazing Maurice, Toby Genkel (Germany, U.K.)
• White Plastic Sky, Tibor Bánóczkia and Sarolta Szabó (Hungary, Slovakia)

This is the third year in a row that the EFAs have nominated five animated features. That was a record in 2021, but feels like it will be the norm going forward. It’s easy to see why the Academy needs five slots. This year’s race feels incredibly close, and Europe is consistently producing high-quality films that deserve recognition.

Sébastien Laudenbach and Chiara Malta’s Chicken for Linda! took the top feature prize at Annecy this year and is perhaps the favorite to win. Pablo Berger’s Robot Dreams won Annecy’s Contrechamp Award and has charmed critics on the continent. The Amazing Maurice has the most mainstream star power of this year’s nominees and is based on a popular entry in Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series. White Plastic Sky has an unforgettable look and a contemporary storyline that could impress voters. And A Greyhound of a Girl screened in the Generation Kplus section of the Berlinale earlier this year.

European Short Film Nominees

• 27, Flóra Anna Buda (France, Hungary)
• Aqueronte, Manuel Muñoz Rivas (Spain)
• Daydreaming So Vividly About our Spanish Holidays (La Herida Luminosa), Christian Avilés (Spain)
• Flores del Otro Patio, Jorge Cadena (Switzerland, Colombia)
• Hardly Working, Total Refusal: Susanna Flock, Robin Klengel, Leonhard Müllner and Michael Stumpf (Austria)

Flóra Anna Buda’s 27 is the only animated title among this year’s European short film nominees. The category featured three animated shorts last year. Despite standing alone, 27 has an excellent chance at taking this year’s prize, having beat out all the live-action competition for this year’s Palme d’Or for a short film at Cannes. Another of this year’s EFA short film nominees, Hardly Working, features animation from the video game Red Dead Redemption 2, but the footage was recorded by the filmmakers in fly-on-the-wall documentary fashion, not animated by them.

Nominees were selected by representatives of the European Film Academy and Cartoon, the European Association for Animation Film, which organizes major events such as Cartoon Forum, Cartoon Movie, and Cartoon Springboard. The European Short Film category is organized by the European Film Academy in cooperation with film festivals from across Europe.

The 2023 European Film Awards will take place on December 9 in Berlin.