European Film Academy picks 4 for best first film

Ask me what the 1,800 voting members of the European Film Academy will choose as their top film of the year and I'd confidently say: the Romanian pic that won over Cannes. Ask me what the same jury will choose as the top film from a first time filmmaker and I could say it will be a film about a musical band. That is because out of the four choices, I'm guessing that Eran Kolirin's The Band's Visit and Anton Corbijn's Control have about an equal chances on this award. The other two noms are Gegenüber (Counterparts) by Jan Bonny from Germany and A Man’s Fear of God by Özer Kiziltan.

The four debut films nominated for European Discovery  of 2007 were determined by a committee comprised of FIPRESCI (the International Federation of Film Critics) members Jacob Neiiendam (Denmark), Marco Lombardi (Italy) and Dana Linssen (the Netherlands), and EFA Board members Pierre-Henri Deleau (France) and Stefan Laudyn (Poland).

They will vote for the winner who will be announced at the 20th European Film Awards on 1 December in Berlin.