Documentary films selected for the European Film Awards 2024

The European Film Academy has revealed its list of 12 documentaries in the running for this year’s European Film Awards.

The 12 feature documentaries, including recent winners from Sundance, Berlin and Locarno, represent a cross-section of European filmmakers. Among the most prominent titles on the list is Mati Diop Dahomeywhich examines the return of looted African treasures to Benin as a means of examining the lasting impact of colonialism; Johan Grimonprez Soundtrack of a Coupwinner of the Sundance World Cinema Jury Prize, which dramatizes the Congolese struggle for independence set to a jazz soundtrack, and examines how the United States used musical ambassadors like Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington and Nina Simone to build goodwill with the Congo while conducting operations to destabilize the region; and No other landby directors Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor, Basel Adra and Hamdan Ballal, a study of a West Bank village by Israeli soldiers, which won the Berlin Documentary Award.

Swiss filmmaker Nicole Vogele has two documentaries in the running: The landscape and the furya look at the struggles of refugees on the Bosnian-Croatian border, which won the Grand Jury Prize at the Swiss documentary festival Vision du Reel, and his upcoming non-fiction feature Words spoken by women one day.

Other documentaries competing for the European Film Award include: Averroes and Rosa Parks by French director Nicolas Philibert, Goodbye Tiberias by Lina Soualem, that of Alina Maksimenko In limbo, Walking in the dark by director Kinshuk Surjan, by Farahnaz Sharifi My Stolen Planetby László Csáki Pelican BlueAnd Direct action by directors Guillaume Cailleau and Ben Russell.

To be eligible, films had to have premiered between 1 June 2023 and 31 May 2024 and have been directed by a European director. The 5,000 members of the European Film Academy will view the selected documentaries over the coming months and vote on the final nominations, which will be announced on 5 November. The winners of this year’s European Film Awards will be announced at an awards ceremony on 7 December in Lucerne, Switzerland.