Only four more days before European filmmakers, EFA Members, guests, nominees and winners will gather to celebrate European cinema at its finest at the 30th European Film Awards in Berlin!

On this special occasion the ceremony will, of course, celebrate this year's films and achievements but it will also shed a special light on some of the films and people that have accompanied the EFAs throughout the past 30 years.

Both script and set design pick up this idea and guests and spectators will find references to some of these people and their films throughout the ceremony. An ensemble of Johannes Bah Kuhnke (Sweden), Alex Brendemühl (Spain), Anna Geislerová (Czech Republic), Dave Johns (UK), Anamaria Marinca (Romania), Palina Rojinski (Germany) and Ivan Shvedoff (Russia) will bring to live some particularly captivating scenes from the rich diversity of European cinema.

Joining them onstage to announce and present the winners of the European Film Awards in a total of 21 categories will be actress Elena Anaya (Spain) and her male colleagues Pierfrancesco Favino (Italy), Jack Reynor (Ireland), and Stellan Skarsgård (Sweden), as well as Wim Wenders, the President of the European Film Academy, and Agnieszka Holland, Chairwoman of the EFA Board. 

Johan Heldenbergh & Veerle Baetens will perform “If I needed You” from the film THE BROKEN CIRCLE BREAKDOW. Other guests will include former award recipients like directors Maren Ade (Germany) and Pawel Pawlikowski (Poland), actress Sandra Hüller (Germany) and actor Peter Simonischek (Austria), as well as EFA founding members Jörn Donner, Stephen Frears, Peter Lilienthal, Carlos Saura, Hanna Schygulla, István Szabó and Volker Schlöndorff. 

Julie Delpy will be honoured with the European Achievement in World Cinema award, Aleksandr Sokurov will receive this year’s Lifetime Achievement Award and Cedomir Kolar will get the European Co-Production Award 2017 – Prix EURIMAGES. Among the guests at the ceremony will also be sound designer Samir Fočo (Bosnia & Herzegovina), composer Raf Keunen (Belgium), costume designer Vassilia Rozana (Greece), hair & make-up artist Susana Sanchez (Spain), and production designer Tonino Zera (Italy), all of them members of the excellence awards jury.

The 900 guests at Haus der Berliner Festspiele and all those at home, following the livestream or watching the broadcast, will be welcomed by Thomas Hermanns, host of the 30th European Film Awards. On www.europeanfilmawards.eu the livestream will start at 17.00 with an interview program from the red carpet with German film journalist Knut Elstermann and continue with the ceremony from 19.00. On Facebook Live there will be a backstage live feed.