The European Film Academy has added its voice to the call for sanctions against Russia by excluding Russian films from this year’s European Film Awards.
“The European Film Academy remains a place to support and unite all filmmakers who share our belief in human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, rule of law, and human rights,” the March 1 statement says. “We acknowledge and appreciate those brave filmmakers in Russia who stand up against this war. But in view of a brutal and unjustified attack, we have to stand with our sisters and brothers in Ukraine whose lives are at risk.”
“The Academy strongly condemns the war started by Russia – Ukraine’s sovereignty and territory must be respected. Putin’s actions are atrocious and totally unacceptable, and we strongly condemn them,” the statement continues.
Earlier this week, Ukrainian director Sergei Loznitsa resigned from the Academy in protest at what he perceived to be an inadequate response on the part of EFA, commenting in an open letter how “it [EFA] was set up in 1989 in order to bury its head in the sand and to shy away from the catastrophe which is taking place in Europe.”
The March 1 EFA statement acknowledges that the organisation’s reaction “should have come at an earlier point in the past days, but our democratic processes needed to be followed. Whilst those took place, the European Film Academy has, in parallel and working quietly behind the scenes, managed to raise funds and put together support structures.”
EFA Chairman Mike Downey elaborated on this point with Business Doc Europe, and claimed that the organisation has been working “behind the scenes” in raising “significant sums” to support the Ukrainian film community.
“The European Film Academy was finally able to have a quorate extraordinary board meeting this morning following our statutes and democratic processes,” he told BDE. “At that point we were able to finalise our position and express our complete support for the people of the Ukraine and the Ukrainian film community. Prior to the invasion we had reached out to all our members in Ukraine with a message of support. This message was universally appreciated by those members on the ground, in the front line, fighting in the Ukraine. We have been working quietly behind the scenes and have been able to raise significant sums to support the film community in Ukraine. On the whole we want to provide as much practical support on the ground as possible. We have therefore refrained from talking too much about it.”
Downey continued: “We will continue the support our good friends at the Ukrainian Film Academy, and the wide range of organisations and institutions who are remaining on the ground, and functioning as best as they possibly can. Ours is an institution that is active and works hard to support its members, as was the case during the Oleg Sentsov years. Human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, rule of law and human rights are at the core of what we do, and the support we have from our 4000-strong membership is second-to-none. All strength to those brave Ukrainians who are out on the front line and fighting. They are the important people we need to take care of.”
