The European Film Academy was founded in 1988 as a cinematic brotherhood that would bring together film-makers from across the East/West divide. The first winner of the Best Film prize was Polish director Krzystof Kieslowski's A Short Film About Killing. Since then the extent to which the map of Europe has changed is exemplified by the most recent winner of the Best Film prize, Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck's The Lives of Others.


This volume features articles and interviews with leading directors, writers, producers, actors, cinematographers, critics, directors of festivals and cinema institutions - as well as audience-members from across the wide swathe of Europe - in which they discuss the question: what is a European film?