EUFCN Location Award 2023: Meet the Jury

The European Film Commissions Network (EUFCN) is delighted to announce the Jury for the seventh edition of the EUFCN Location Award, the annual prize for European filming locations. The five distinguished professionals in the industry will select the five locations that will compete for best European filming location of 2023.

Andrea David (Travel Blogger | Filmtourismus), Wendy Mitchell (Journalist, Moderator and Film Festival Consultant), Jerry Odlin (Sales Director of Boutique Editions Ltd), Alison Taylor (Location Manager, 1st Vice President of the LMGI) and Venia Vergou (Producer, member of Crew United Greece) will have the task of evaluating all submissions from EUFCN member film commissions, focusing on the significant role of the location in the story and its remarkable use inside the audiovisual product. The five finalists will be revealed on Nov. 27, 2023.

The EUFCN Location Award was established in 2017. Every year EUFCN members have the opportunity to nominate one location from a film or a TV series shot in their country and released with international distribution that particular year. To be nominated for this year’s edition, the production associated with the location must have premiered in cinemas, festivals, TV, online or on digital platforms between October 3rd 2022 and September 11th 2023. After the selection of the shortlist, starting from November 27th, the general public will have the chance to vote for their favourite location on the EUFCN website. One lucky winner will be picked among the voters and will win a trip to the Best European Filming Location of 2023.

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 role it played in the UK TV series The Durrells; El Hierro, Canary Islands (Spain), intriguing setting of Spanish thriller TV series Hierro; the Pažaislis Church and Monastery Complex (Lithuania), which helped to recreate the splendid and tumultuous reign of Empress Catherine II of Russia in the miniseries Catherine the Great; Cahir Castle (Ireland), a key location for David Lowery’s fantasy film The Green Knight; and last year’s winner Chiliadou Beach (Greece), which emerged as one of the protagonists of Ruben Östlund’s Triangle of Sadness.

Below, a focus on each juror.

Andrea David

Andrea David studied tourism management in Munich and wrote her diploma thesis on how films influence our travel decisions. While doing research on film tourism she gained a taste of film-related trips by herself and started travelling to various filming locations. In 2007 she decided to share her experiences regularly on a blog called Filmtourismus.de. A few years later she turned her hobby into a profession as a travel blogger and started to work with tourism boards and film companies to create film-focused travel content. On Instagram she is specialised in aligning film stills with its real-life destinations. Meanwhile she reaches 150.000 visitors per month on the blog Filmtourismus.de and 830.000 followers on @filmtourismus on Instagram. In 2022 she published the travel book “Szene für Szene die Welt entdecken” in German language.

Wendy Mitchell

Wendy Mitchell is a journalist, moderator and film festival consultant. She is a contributing editor and Nordic correspondent at Screen International, the producer of the Sundance London film festival, the UK and Nordic delegate for San Sebastian, curator at Lubeck Nordic Film Days and consultant for Cannes Marche and Berlinale’s European Film Market. She has also been a speaker, mentor or consultant for EAVE, First Cut Lab, The National Film and TV School, the National Film School of Denmark and more.

Jerry Odlin

Jerry Odlin is the Sales Director of Boutique Editions Ltd, publishers of Location International Magazine and Location California Magazine. He has been involved with the ‘’service sector” of the film and TV industry since 1983 with spells working for Kemps (now kftv.com), Variety Magazine, the Creative Handbook (an image-based directory of Europe’s leading commercial photographers) before becoming one of the founders of Boutique Editions in 2003. During its time Boutique, he has published Locations Magazine on behalf of the AFCI, Location UK, Location Germany, the Cannes Lions Daily News as well as providing publishing services to festivals such as MipTV and MIPCOM.

Alison Taylor

Over the course of her 28-year career as a Location Manager, Alison Taylor has had the privilege of working on many recognizable film and television projects for all the major studios including, Disney, Amazon, Netflix, Universal, Warner Bros, Marvel, HBO, Fox, etc.  Additionally, Alison is the recipient of multiple California on Location Awards. Her awards were for her work on Southland (2012), Straight Outta Compton (2015), and A Wrinkle in Time (2017) and Insecure (2021).  She is an active member of the Location Managers Guild International (1st Vice President), Hollywood Teamsters Local 399 (Trustee), Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (Producers Peer Group Executive Committee Member).

Venia Vergou

The former director of the Hellenic Film Commission at the Greek Film Centre (2017-2021) and board member at EUFCN (2019-2021), Venia Vergou has been an insider of the Greek film industry for over 20 years. A film critic. A co-producer of three feature films, as well as Coordinator for documenta 14 and head of communication and film programmer for the Greek Film Archive. She studied Communication and Mass Media in Athens and holds a M.A. in Film Studies and European Cinema from UWE in Bristol, UK. Today, Venia is a member of the Crew United team, responsible for establishing the Greek channel of the biggest European online network for audiovisual professionals.

The European Film Commissions Network is a non-profit association that supports and promotes the European film industry and culture. It currently represents 98 European film commissions and film institutions from 31 different countries.