An awards season for shortlisted and nominated European films in the lead-up to the European Film Awards: the newly launched European Award Season is one of the latest steps in the European Film Academy’s mission to enhance the visibility of films from the continent among a larger audience. Together with its numerous European partners, the European Film Academy has been contributing to synchronising the marketing and promotion around films made on the continent - the so-called "hot contenders". First, the annual Month of European Film saw an increasing number of cities join forces, with cinemas all over Europe offering original programming of continental cinema, from classics to contemporary movies. Over the past four years, this has led to 100 European cities participating, and a record number of 16,000 screenings and 467,000 ticket sales. All revenues have remained with the participating partner cinemas. The programme has been supported by Creative Europe - MEDIA since 2022.

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In its fifth year, the European Film Academy's initiative takes the next step. With the date change for the European Film Awards to mid-January, the period between the announcement of the nominees on 18 November 2025 and the awards ceremony itself on 17 January 2026 is a solid two months. This not only enables Academy members to watch more films before casting their votes, it also offers a window for distributors and exhibitors to promote the nominated movies to film-loving cinema audiences. A pilot programme with the Berlin-based Yorck cinema group takes the lead: every week, one of the nominated flicks is screened in a local cinema, presented by a Berlin-based Academy member, who will introduce the film. Local public radio broadcaster radioeins (rbb) is a partner and will present the Academy nominee screenings. After the Berlin pilot, the European Film Academy intends for similar models to be adopted by other cinemas in Europe.

Academy CEO Matthijs Wouter Knol says: “The European Award Season naturally links to the international awards season and highlights the European films that very likely will continue to compete for awards outside Europe. This is a period in which the visibility of this continent's cinema is growing. We want to make people more curious about the European films they have missed. It is an opportunity we would like to explore - together with our broad network of European partners."

Occurring right at the beginning of the European Award Season is the announcement of the nominees, on Tuesday 18 November in Seville, Spain. This will be the day when, in 125 European cities, film programmes will get under way over the period lasting until mid-January, when the European Film Awards take place on Saturday 17 January 2026 in Berlin.

All participating cinemas screen European films, and many of these are contemporary and shortlisted for the European Film Awards. The programmes also include the movies nominated for the 2026 LUX Audience Award (see the news) and the European Young Audience Award. The European Award Season will also see the European Arthouse Cinema Day take place on 23 November, a project organised by CICAE, the international confederation of arthouse cinemas.

Apart from cinema screenings, existing co-operations under the new brand continue with MUBI, documentary platform DA Film and FestivalScope, the latter running a European short-film programme. Another new initiative is the collaboration with the filmfriend library platform, linked to 862 public libraries in German-speaking European countries. All library members can watch European films related to the history of the European Film Awards on this platform as part of their subscription. Also, for the first time, four cities outside the continent have signed up to participate: Hong Kong, Santiago de Chile, Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City (Vietnam). Find out about the participants, including the new venues in Europe, here.