LUX Audience Award 2025 Nominees Include Oscar-Winning ‘Flow' and Ukraine War Doc ‘Intercepted'
The largest audience award in the world, the LUX Audience Award, sees citizens and members of the democratically elected European Parliament coming together yearly to honor a European film with their coveted prize. This year's slate of highly-acclaimed nominees include Gints Zibalodis's history-making 'Flow,' which just won Latvia its first ever Oscar for Best Animated Film, and Mati Diop's 'Dahomey,' the first film by a Black filmmaker to win the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival.
A joint initiative of the European Parliament and the European Film Academy in collaboration with the European Commission and Europa Cinemas, the LUX Audience Award 'fosters dialogue and engagement between politics and the public through the medium of film.' Nominated films address 'European values' as well as raising 'awareness about some of today's main social and political issues.' Throughout the competition period, the European Parliament provides subtitles in 24 EU languages and organizes free screenings across all European Union member states. Previous winners of the LUX Audience Award include Lukas Dhont's 'Close' and Jasmila Žbanić's 'Quo Vadis, Aida?'
Voting for the LUX Audience Award closes in April, followed by an awards ceremony on a date yet to be confirmed. Below, you can find short profiles on all of this year's nominated films:
'Animal' by Sofia Exarchou (Greece, Austria, Romania, Cyprus, Bulgaria)
The first Greek film in 30 years to win the Golden Alexander at Greece's prestigious Thessaloniki Film Festival, 'Animal' is the follow-up to Exarchou's lauded debut 'Park,' which premiered at the Toronto Film Festival and won the New Directors Award in San Sebastian. The film, which tells the story of a group of entertainers preparing for the busy tourist season at an all-inclusive resort as nights turn increasingly violent, picked up several other awards during its successful festival run, including acting awards at Thessaloniki and Locarno for Dimitra Vlagopoulou.
'Dahomey' by Mati Diop (France, Senegal, Benin)
Diop became the first-ever Black filmmaker to win the Berlinale Golden Bear in 2024 with her follow-up to 2019's highly acclaimed 'Atlantics.' In a history-making moment, it was Lupita Nyong'o — the first Black president of the Berlinale's International Jury — who handed Diop the award for her beguiling hybrid documentary, following the return of 26 royal treasures from Paris to their titular home of Dahomey in Benin. In her review, Variety's Jessica Kiang called 'Dahomey' 'a striking, stirring example of the poetry that can result when the dead and the dispossessed speak to and through the living.'
'Flow' by Gints Zibalodis (Latvia, France, Belgium)
In the ten months since premiering at Un Certain Regard in Cannes, Zibalodis's story about a black cat befriending several animals in the aftermath of a devastating flood has become the most-viewed film in theaters in Latvian history, with over 255,000 admissions. The film also gave Latvia its first ever Oscar nominations — for both Best International Film and Best Animated Film. Zibalodis's film won the latter award, becoming the first ever independent film to win the category and beating major studio contenders such as 'The Wild Robot' and 'Inside Out 2.'
'Intercepted' by Oksana Karpovych (Canada, France, Ukraine)
Karpovych's foreboding documentary mixes intercepted phone calls of Russian soldiers between March and November of 2022 with images of the destruction in Ukraine to investigate the mechanisms of war. The film was shot over two years, with footage captured in Donbas and the Kyiv, Kharkiv, and Mykolaiv regions. 'Intercepted' premiered at the Berlinale and had a successful festival run, including picking up the Grand Prize for National Feature at the Montreal International Documentary Festival. Variety's Murtada Elfadl called Karpovych's film 'a political snapshot laying bare how both belief in propaganda and disillusionment with leaders can co-exist and lead to apathy.'
'Julie Keeps Quiet' by Leonardo van Dijl (Belgium, Sweden)Van Dijl's feature debut follows the titular Julie, the star of an elite tennis academy who is faced with a great dilemma when her coach is investigated and suspended from his duties. The film, which premiered in Critics' Week at Cannes, went on to have a prestigious festival run, playing festivals such as Karlovy Vary, Toronto, and London, and was selected as Belgium's Oscar entry. In his review, Variety's Guy Lodge said, 'Julie Keeps Quiet' 'knows the value of control — though its own calm is fraught with anxiety and anger.'
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"The history is so deep there, but we were able to bring in technology like touchscreen displays in the lobby. People will learn and be able to see the performers that made the Apollo what it is today, going back to the 1930s when the Apollo first started to allow African-American performers to perform there," Cowan said. The auditorium is where some of the biggest changes will take place. Standing at the back of the orchestra seating with Newsweek, as technicians got ready for the Spring Benefit, Profet explained that while much of the decoration in the space will remain, performances will be very different when the Apollo reopens. "A lot of those original landmarked pieces of the historic theater will be preserved, but this is an opportunity to really integrate interactivity into the experience, as well as technology, and to digitize a lot of what happens here," Profet said. 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"With the loss of so many theaters on 125th Street, if you look at photographs from the 1930s and 40s it was lined with theaters like 42nd Street back in the day and they were all lost. All the grand old theaters were lost to development of various kinds, or just decay, and the Apollo, to me, it's like the last theater standing," he told Newsweek. Renderings of the foyer of The Apollo Theatre Renderings of the foyer of The Apollo Theatre Renderings courtesy of Charcoalblue, Flyleaf Creative, and Beyer Blinder Belle. 'It Extends Beyond Culture' All this work to expand and enhance the Apollo as a landmark arts venue in the heart of a historic Black neighborhood comes at a time when arts funding is in crisis. President Donald Trump recently targeted the Smithsonian Institution, which operates more than 20 museums, including the National Museum of African American History and Culture, in a recent executive order entitled "Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History." For producer Larry Jackson, who has worked alongside Davis for over 20 years, it is vital that the Apollo remains strong. "It's a cultural church, it's a cultural mecca, it's a real sanctuary for Black culture," Jackson told Newsweek on the red carpet. "To me, maybe it's lofty and sacrilegious to say, I think the Apollo [is] on the same level as the White House. It's a landmark and a national treasure that should always remain." Profet told Newsweek she was confident in the Apollo's future, because of its past. "There were times in our history, in full transparency, where it really wasn't clear whether or not the Apollo would have survived," she said. But the Harlem and wider New York community came together, as well as city and state leaders, and those in Congress. One of the Apollo's long-time advocates was Democratic Representative Charles Rangel, who died in May. He described the theater as "like the Mecca" during an interview in 2007 and fought for its survival in the 1990s. That work is now being carried out by Harlem's current representatives at city, state and federal levels, along with community members. "We're all enthusiasts of culture, but we also recognize the unique role in the Apollo in shaping all things that have made America survive and thrive," Profet said. "It extends, in my opinion, beyond culture. It's about advocacy. It's about advocacy for humanity. It's about advocacy for the arts."
