The European Film Academy have nominated five films for the Discovery Award – which recognises a director’s first full length feature film. Previous winners include Bruno Dumot’s La vie de Jésus (1997), Laurent Cantet’s Human Resources (2000), Andrey Zvyagintsev’s The Return (2003) and last year the award went to the very deserving Steve McQueen’s Hunger. The favorite among this year’s batch would be the just selected Israeli film from Scandar Copti & Yaron Shani. Ajami received a special mention at Cannes. Here are the five noms.:
AJAMI, Germany / Israel
written & directed by Scandar Copti & Yaron Shani
produced by Mosh Danon, Thanassis Karathanos & Talia Kleinhendler
GAGMA NAPIRI (The Other Bank), Georgia / Kazakhstan
directed by George Ovashvili
written by Nugzar Shataidze
produced by George Ohashvili & Sain Gabdullin
KATALIN VARGA, Romania / UK / Hungary
Written & directed by Peter Strickland
produced by Tudor Giurgiu, Oana Giurgiu & Peter Strickland
SOIS SAGE (BE GOOD), France / Denmark
written & directed by Juliette Garcias
produced by Marianne Slot
SONBAHAR (Autumn), Turkey / Germany
written & directed Özcan Alper
produced by F. Serkan Acar & Kadir Sözen