For the first time, the European Film Commissions Network (EUFCN) introduces the Location Award Jury, a five-member jury of distinguished professionals that will select the five locations competing for the Location Award, the annual prize for European film locations organized by EUFCN in collaboration with Cineuropa.

Lori Balton (Location Scout, Founding Member and Past President of LMGI), Valerio Caruso (Director of Cineuropa), Matthijs Wouter Knol (Director of the European Film Market), Julian Newby (Founder and Editorial Director of Boutique Editions Ltd.), and Julie-Jeanne Régnault (Secretary General at EFAD – European Film Agencies) will have the task of evaluating all submissions from EUFCN Member Film Commissions, revealing the five finalist locations of 2020.

“We are very proud and honoured to have such experienced professionals from the industry playing an important part in the competition.” says Truls Kontny, President of EUFCN. “We are thankful for the time they will dedicate in the selection of the shortlist. The Location Award is one of EUFCN’s initiative we strongly believe in. It helps increasing the visibility of European locations all over the world and highlights the work done by the film commissions in our Network.”

The EUFCN Location Award was established in 2017, this is how it works: every year EUFCN members have the opportunity to candidate one location from a film, a TV series or a documentary shot in their country and released with international distribution that particular year. To be nominated for this year’s edition, the production associated with that particular location must have premiered in cinemas, festivals, TV, online or on digital platforms between July 2nd  2019 and September 20th 2020. The external jury of five professionals selects the five locations in the shortlist and, starting from November 9th, the general public has the chance to vote for their favourite location on the Cineuropa website. One lucky winner is picked among the voters and wins a trip to the winning location.

Past winners of the EUFCN Location Award are the City of Gorlitz (Germany), for playing the title role in Wes Anderson’s The Grand Budapest Hotel, the Island of Corfu (Greece), in recognition of the key role it played in the UK TV series The Durrells, and last year’s winner El Hierro, Canary Islands (Spain), intriguing setting of Spanish thriller TV series Hierro.