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The European Film Awards will move to Athens, the home city of EFA-winning director Yorgos Lanthimos, for its 2027 event.
The European Film Academy and the Hellenic Film and Audiovisual Centre in Athens announced the move on Wednesday. The 39th EFA gala will be held at the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center (SNFCC) in the Greek capital.
Europe’s top film honors alternate annually between Berlin and other European cultural capitals. This will be the first time the EFAs will be held in southeastern Europe. The 39th EFAs will be held on January 16, 2027 at the Renzo Piano-designed Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center.
“Athens welcomes one of the most iconic events in European cinema, having the honor of hosting, for the first time, the 39th European Film Awards ceremony,” said Greek minister of culture Lina Mendoni.
The awards will be preceded by a year-long promotion of Greek and European cinema, with details to be announced in early 2026. The selection of Athens aims to spotlight Greece’s growing film industry and its competitive cash rebate scheme. The Greek tax credit, which offers a rebate of up to 40 percent for qualifying productions, is one of the most appealing in Europe.
Angelina Jolie’s award-season hopeful Maria, in which she plays the legendary Greek opera star Maria Callas, shot some scenes at the Apollon Public Theatre in Pyrgos. Ruben Östlund filmed the final act of his Oscar-nominated Triangle of Sadness on the island of Evia. David Cronenberg’s Crimes of the Future was shot entirely in Greece.
“The selection of Athens highlights the city’s long and rich cultural heritage and also reflects Greece’s growing dynamism and influence in the European film and audiovisual industry,” noted Leonidas Christopoulos, CEO of the Hellenic Film and Audiovisual Center.
Lanthimos, director of Poor Things, The Favourite, The Lobster, and Kinds of Kindness, and a 5-time Oscar nominee, is the most famous and successful of the 158 Greek EFA members. His features have picked up 10 EFA nominations and 4 wins, including best picture for The Favourite in 2019. Lanthimos’ long-time collaborator, and fellow Athenian Yorgos Mavropsaridis, won the EFA for best editing the same year. The Lobster co-writer Efthimis Filippou shared a best screenwriter honor with Lanthimos in 2015.
The late, legendary Greek director Theo Angelopoulos (Ulyssee’s Gaze, Eternity and a Day), won 3 European Film Awards in his career, including the best picture prize for Landscape in the Mist in 1989. Greek producers Konstantinos Kontovrakis and Giorgos Karnavas received the Eurimages International CoProduction Award in 2018.
As of next year, the European Film Academy is shifting its gala from December to mid-January to better position the EFAs in the award season. The 2026 European Film Awards will be held in Berlin.
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