The European Film Academy welcomes 709 new members

The European Film Academy welcome 709 renowned film professionals as new members, who will all be eligible to vote for the European Film Awards.

The names of all new members have been announced on today’s Europe Day, 9 May 2024. New members are invited once per year. After an increase in membership in the past years, a new record of 709 European filmmakers have accepted membership this year, further strengthening the voice of European cinema all over the world.

Some of the new European Film Academy members (from top left to bottom right): Matteo Garrone (© European Film Academy), Cate Blanchett (© Joan Hernandez Mir), Maria Bakalova (© Joseph Sinclair), Cheng-Hsu Chung, Selahattin Paşalı, Cristi Puiu (© Ileana Puiu), Molly Manning Walker (© Billy Boyd Cape), Benita Sarah Bailey, Juraj Lerotić and Valentina Bellè (© Guido Stazzoni)

Among the new members, 49% are women, 50% are men and 1% defines as non-binary. Most new members stem from Germany (114), Italy (58), Greece (50), the UK (50), Switzerland (37), France (36) and Poland (36), but also numerous members have joined from Spain (26), Czech Republic (26), Ukraine (24), Romania (23), and Turkey (20). In total, members from 44 countries joined the European Film Academy.

With 23%, almost a quarter of the new members joining are ‘young members’ under 36 years old. This strengthens the representation of a younger, yet notable generation of European filmmakers within the European Film Academy. Overall, an increasing number of members representing the arts and crafts of cinema have been invited. In the upcoming years, the European Film Academy is keen to further increase the number of members working as editors, production designers, sound designers, composers, hair and make-up artists or costume designers.

New members of the European Film Academy include Cate Blanchett (Australia/UK), Jovan Marjanović (Bosnia and Herzegovina), Maria Bakalova (Bulgaria), Juraj Lerotić (Croatia), Anna Hints (Estonia), Ariane Toscan du Plantier (France), Stéphan Castang (France), David Thion (France), Marie-Ange Luciani (France), Latifa Saïd (France), Rebecca Houzel (France), Thomas Hakim (France), Sami Mustafa (France/Kosovo), Mohamed Siam (France), Hanna Bergholm (Finland), Hamze Bytyçi (Germany), Christian M. Goldbeck (Germany), Behrooz Karamizade (Germany), Jerry Hoffmann (Germany), Aylin Tezel (Germany), Jasmin Tabatabai (Germany), Sofia Exarchou (Greece), Phedon Papamichael (Greece), Kate McCullough (Ireland), Matteo Garrone (Italy), Enzo d’Alò (Italy), Francesco Montagner (Italy), Uljana Kim (Lithuania), Cindy Jansen (Netherlands), Fatih Rağbet (Netherlands), Cristi Puiu (Romania), Anca Puiu (Romania), Elene Naveriani (Switzerland), Selahattin Paşalı (Turkey), Molly Manning Walker (UK), Melanie Hoyes (UK), Lizzie Francke (UK), Charles Newland (UK), Jad Salfiti (UK) and Guy Nattiv (US).

Among the new members of the European Film Academy are Romani filmmakers as well as Sámi filmmakers, stemming from the Roma and indigenous populations in various European countries, including Greenland.

Currently, the European Film Academy has over 5,000 members in 52 countries.

These are the new members of the European Film Academy

The members of the European Film Academy are bound by a collective sense of European cultural identity and a dedication to showcasing the diversity and richness of European filmmaking. All members can register to vote every year for the European Film Awards and by doing so get access to the Academy Selection of films which are the pool from which nominations and award winners are chosen. Additionally, the Academy organises events throughout the year, both in-person or online, that help members to connect to each other. Special focus programmes on the Academy VOD platform promote European films and are exclusively accessible to registered members. Building a European film community of filmmakers, and by doing so growing interest and accessibility of European cinema to a community of film-lovers, is a major driving force of the European Film Academy throughout the year.

Since 1 May 2024, Juliette Binoche is the new President of the European Film Academy. Originally, the Academy was founded in 1988 by renowned European filmmakers such as Ingmar Bergman, Pedro Almodóvar, Liliana Cavani, Claude Chabrol, Federico Fellini, Isabelle Huppert, Krzysztof Kieslowski, Giulietta Masina, Marcello Mastrioianni, David Puttnam, Hanna Schygulla, István Szabó, Liv Ullmann, and Wim Wenders – and was limited to a maximum of 99 members. Since the 1990s, the number of members has gradually increased, since 2021 with 30%.