22/02/2013 - European Film Awards will return to the Baltics as it heads to Riga

The European Film Academy have announced that the 2014 European Film Awards will be held on December 13 in Riga, Latvia.  Travelling biannually, (the EFAs take place in Berlin on alternate years with the 2013 edition of the event being held in Berlin on December 7) it will represent the second time the European Film Academy have headed to the Baltics with the 2010 ceremony being held in Tallinn, Estonia.

EFA Director Marion Döring said: “As a truly European event, this is the only awards ceremony that travels and it is always great to bring the awards elsewhere. We’re looking forward to the Latvian taste the awards weekend will doubtlessly acquire!”

The EFA’s will take place in the year when Riga is hosting the European Capital of Culture and it is hoped that the event will shine a spotlight not only on the city but on the growing film industry of the country. In recent years, Latvia’s industry has survived drastic recession based cuts to go on to produce a number of well-regarded films including last year’s People Like Us which premiered at Karlovy Vary in 2012. It’s also become an increasingly attractive place for international crews with projects such as Sergei Loznita’s Cannes competition film In The Fog filming in the country.

Speaking to Cineuropa, the director of the National Film Centre of Latvia, Ilze Gailite Holmberg, said: “For Riga as European Culture Capital of 2014 and for the promotion of Latvia and the Latvian film industry it will be an excellent chance that we have to benefit from, and we perceive the responsibility of co-organising EFA in Riga as a great honour and challenge. For Latvian film industry representatives there will be several tasks – to expose European film culture to Latvian viewers, to let Europe know about the film industry in Latvia; and above all to organise a beautiful festivity of European film to European audiences. Together with the Riga 2014 Cultural Capital organisers and Latvian film industry representatives we will already start working on preparations for the 2014 EFAs’s in March.”