Norwegian film The Crossing has won the Young Audience Award 2021 awarded by the European Film Academy!
3,600 jurors aged 12-14 from 38 European countries watched the three films nominated by the European Film Academy between 21st April and 25th April 2021 and voted for the best of them from the safety and comfort of their homes. The award ceremony was live-streamed on Sunday 25th April from Berlin. The prize was awarded to a Norwegian director Johanne Helgeland for her debut feature film The Crossing.
The Crossing
Norway, 1942. Ten-year-old Gerda and her brother Otto have no idea that their parents are members of the resistance. Just before Christmas, both adults are arrested, and the siblings remain at the mercy of fate. They find out that two Jewish children, Sarah and Daniel, are hiding in their cellar. Gerda and Otto decide to finish what their parents started. Like the legendary four musketeers, the children unite to bring Sarah and Daniel to the border of neutral Sweden through snow drifts and deep forests. Devotion and courage can be found even in the smallest of us.
Pinocchio
The most famous wooden puppet comes to life.
Old woodcarver Geppetto creates a puppet that magically comes to life. It begins to move, talk, and even eat. Geppeto gives the puppet the name Pinocchio. He decides to raise him as his own son, but Pinocchio can't keep up with his curiosity. No mischief is foreign to him, but thanks to his trustworthiness, he is easily tricked by every swindler. He travels the world of strange beings: from the land of puppets, through a field of miracles to the belly of a huge fish. But what does he have to go through to become a real boy?
Wolfwalkers
Wake up the animal inside you.
In times of myths and magic, a young apprentice hunter Robyn travels to Ireland with her father. This is where the last group of wolves lives and it must be completely eradicated. Curious, Robyn sets out from the safety of the city to explore the forbidden landscape on her own. During her roaming, she befriends an extraordinary girl Mebh, a member of a mysterious tribe who, according to superstitions, turns into wolves at night. When Mebh`s mother gets lost, the two girls follow in her footsteps. The deeper they head into the woods, the further Robyn moves away from her father, whose task is to destroy the world of Wolfwalkers. A world whose magical beauty is as disarming as the animation of the whole film.
Young Audience Award
Young Audience Award is a Europe-wide contest, in which the audiences aged 12-14 decide upon the best European film of the year. Over the course of one day, young viewers across Europe become jurors and award the Young Audience Award to one of three films nominated by the European Film Academy.
The Young Audience Award 2021 was held online. All the young jurors watched the nominated films and participated in an online discussion about their ways of evaluation. The award ceremony was held in Berlin and was live-streamed to other European cities.
