Alexander Nanau (EFA-Getty Images)
Alexander Nanau’s Collective (Colectiv) was voted European Documentary 2020 by more than 3800 members of the European Film Academy. The announcement was made on the closing night of the European Film Awards series that ran 8-12 December 2020.
The multi award-winning Collective is produced by Alexander Nanau Production (Alexander Nanau, Bianca Oana), Samsa Film (Bernard Michaux), HBO Europe (Hanka Kastelicova). Sales are handled by Cinephil.
In 2015, a fire at Bucharest’s Colectiv club leaves 27 dead and 180 injured. Soon, more burn victims begin dying in hospitals from wounds that were not life-threatening. Then a doctor blows the whistle to a team of investigative journalists. One revelation leads to another as the journalists start to uncover vast health care fraud. When a new health minister is appointed, he offers unprecedented access to his efforts to reform the corrupt system but also to the obstacles he faces. Following journalists, whistle-blowers, burn victims, and government officials, Collective is an uncompromising look at the impact of investigative journalism at its best.
The film is also nominated for LUX European Audience Film Award, together with Thomas Vinterberg’s Another Roundand Jan Komasa’s Corpus Christi. The LUX European Audience Film Award is presented by the European Parliament and the European Film Academy, and in partnership with the European Commission and Europa Cinemas.
The three nominated films will be subtitled in all 24 EU languages in order to be accessible to the widest audience possible. After a “watch & vote” period (from mid-December to mid-April) during which the nominated films will be screened and rated online at www.luxaward.eu, the recipient of the new award will be determined by the general public and the Members of the European Parliament (each holding 50% of the vote). The winner will be announced in a ceremony in the European Parliament on 28 April 2021.
Northern Ireland filmmaker Mark Cousins was awarded the inaugural EFA Award for Innovative Storytelling for hisWomen Make Film: A New Road Movie Through Cinema. “With this award, the European Film Academy wishes to pay tribute to a ground-breaking documentary produced by Hopscotch Films, a 14-hour odyssey introducing the viewer to many amazing but often overlooked female auteurs of cinema,” says the award citation.
Using almost a thousand film extracts from thirteen decades and six continents, Mark Cousins asks how films are made, shot and edited; how stories are shaped and how movies depict life, love, politics, humour and death, all through the compelling lens of some of the world’s greatest directors — all of them women.
