EUFA, European University Film Awards, our second time
12/12/2018 06:11 PM

As we already got accustomed to last year, in October-November we had to watch, discuss, and also write about the 5 nominated films, chosen by a jury of five professionals at the Hamburg Filmfest in September. Members of the elective class Contemporary Film Theory (teacher: Andrea Virginás) were enthusiastic about the project, even if it supposed quite a number of supplementary hours. Intense work was required, as the EUFA-terms (European, University/Youth, Film, Award-worthy) needed to be conceptualized along.

The following were the five nominated films: Tarzan's Testicles (r. Alexandru Solomon, 2017), Foxtrot (r. Samuel Maoz, 2017), Happy as Lazzaro (r. Alice Rochrwacher, 2018), Styx (r. Wolfgang Fischer, 2018) and Utoya - July 22 (r. Erik Poppe, 2018). Based on the opinion of all the participants the university voting sheet was prepared, and our students had the following toplist: Utoya, followed by Foxtrot, and then by Happy as Lazzaro. Here you can access English-language opinion pieces written by members of our class. The following students participated in the 2018 EUFA-edition: Bartos Arnold, Bustya Áron, Farkas Boglárka Angéla, Fekete Péter, Incze Barbara, Kömény Attila, Dominika Kolisewska, Kötő Emese, Miklós Nóra, Páll Adél, Tóthpál Béla, Vadász Botond.

Based on her oral and written commentaries, her English-language skills and the votes of her groupmates, it was Páll Adél who represented our group at the finale in Hamburg. Between 4-7 December 22 European students took part in film analysis workshops, and the end result of that was the awarding of the 2018 EUFA statue. The prize went to the third feature of Italian filmmaker Alice Rochrwacher, for her creative usage of Italian film history, for her funny and poignant sensibility to social class differences in contemporary Europe and for the creation of a dreamlike and memorable film.

On the group photo taken in Hamburg’s Studio Kino, besides the participant students, there are present the wonderful organizers of the event: Katrin Kohlstedde, Albert Wiederspiel, Dagmar Brunow, Claudia Jaeger, and Skadi Loist. Virginás Andrea was also invited, to participate as a teacher-moderator and also to get inspiration from the intensive film analysis workshop.

The prize will be presented to Alice Rochrwacher on the occasion of the 31st European Film Awards by Albert Wiederspiel (the director of Hamburg Filmfest) and Katrin Kohlstedde (the artistic director of Hamburg Filmfest). The event will take place on the 15th of December 2018 at Teatro de Masteranza in Sevilla and it can be livestreamed here.

The EUFA project is supported by the Joachim Herz Stiftung, Creative Europe Desk Hamburg, and NECS (European Network for Cinema and Media Studies).