European Film Promotion (EFP) is pleased to announce the ten emerging European talents for this year's 25th anniversary edition of EUROPEAN SHOOTING STARS. From 11 - 14 February 2022, seven actresses and three actors will be presented to the international press, the industry, and the public in an exclusive hybrid programme during this year's 72nd Berlinale (10 – 20 February 2022) adapted to the current Covid protocol. One of the programme's many highlights will be the European Shooting Stars Awards Ceremony on 14 February 2022 at the Berlinale Palast.
The 5 person international jury of Swedish-Georgian filmmaker Levan Akin, casting director and president of the International Casting Director’s Network (ICDN) Timka Grin from Bosnia and Herzegovina, former Italian European Shooting Star Sara Serraiocco, Luxembourgish film producer Bernard Michaux and German based film scholar and curator Yun-hua Chen have selected the ten outstanding talents and affirmed their immense potential for an international career based on many factors, including evaluation of the nominated feature films and series (in bold below).
2022 European Shooting Stars
The ten selected European Shooting Stars for 2022 are: Gracija Filipović (Croatia), Marie Reuther (Denmark), Anamaria Vartolomei (France), Emilio Sakraya (Germany), Clare Dunne (Ireland), Hanna van Vliet (The Netherlands), João Nunes Monteiro (Portugal), Timon Sturbej (Slovenia), Evin Ahmad (Sweden) and Souheila Yacoub (Switzerland).
Her collaborative work with director Antoneta Alamat Kusijanović has brought Gracija Filipović from Croatia international recognition and acclaim. Filipović's first leading role in a feature film was in Kusijanović' Murina, which was awarded the Camera d'Or in Cannes. The jury was impressed by her “intuitive and original performance, with a level of maturity which belies her years”.
Marie Reuther from Denmark convinced with her transformative performance and the obvious joy of acting in her debut lead in HBO’s first Danish-language mystery thriller Kamikaze. “Her face can express a multitude of feelings in a layered and versatile way…She makes everything fun to watch”. For her performance, she was honoured with the Best Actress Award at Series Mania in Lille, France.
The jury was persuaded by “her eyes that tell stories in a way that no words can”. Anamaria Vartolomei from France stars in the Golden Lion winner Happening by Audrey Diwan. The jury was also impressed by her “readiness to push herself to the limits…and embody even the most impenetrable roles”. The extensive filmography of the young actress, who starred alongside Isabelle Huppert in My Little Princess at the age of eleven, also includes feature films like Jacky in the Kingdom of Women, Eternity, The Ideal, My Revolution, How to Be a Good Wife and Just Kids.
Emilio Sakraya from Germany "delivers a memorable performance that emphasizes his star quality and an immense potential as a lead actor.” Nominated for Til Schweiger's The Salvation of the World as We Know It, he previously starred in films and series such as Electro Ghetto, 4 Blocks, Cold Feet, Warrior Nun and One Night Off. In Fatih Akin's upcoming feature Rheingold, Emilio plays the lead, rapper Xatar.
Well-known for her leading role and as co-writer of the critically acclaimed and multi-award winning feature Herself, directed by Phyllida Lloyd, Clare Dunne from Ireland starred as Amanda in the first season of the notable AMC+ and RTE series KIN. The jury is enthusiastic about her performance, which “communicates a deep sense of self-awareness and well-founded confidence”.
For her role in ANNE+, which she also co-created, Hanna van Vliet from The Netherlands received a Golden Calf nomination as "Best Actress in a drama series" at the Netherlands Film Festival in 2020. The jury is thrilled by her screen presence, which is ″full of life and outstandingly sympathetic, imbued with a strong sense of precision, sensitivity, and authenticity” and attests to “huge star potential” for the young actress who has also fought for a broad representation of female leads and queer characters in the (Dutch) film and television landscape.
Portuguese actor João Nunes Monteiro’s credits include feature films such as Aristides de Sousa Mendes by Francisco Manso and Mosquito by João Nuno Pinto, for which he won the Cinema Academy Sophia Award as Best Actor. The jury is impressed by his performance in Miguel Gomes and Marueen Fazendeiro's The Tsugua Diaries which premiered in this year’s Director’s Fortnight at the Cannes Film Festival: “His quiet intensity and respectful authenticity draw us to his soul-searching characters in a way that approximates documentaries”.
Timon Sturbej from Slovenia is a multi-award winning theatre and film actor who received high praise from the experts: “With sublime artistry and a raw vigor, his presence is so powerful and compelling that the audience’s eyes are locked on him wherever he is. Through subtle expressions and evocative presence, his performance is disarming,multifaceted and addictive – the epitome of acting”. His well-known films are Sexual Perversity by David Mamet and Consequences by Darko Stante as well as his nominated film, Riders/Spring Dreaming, by Dominik Mencej, which will be released this year.
The jury predicts “a very bright future…and a wide range of international opportunities″ for Swedish actress and writer Evin Ahmad - already well known for her roles in The Rain, Quicksand and One Red Eye - "who radiates unique energy which is both enigmatic and approachable”. She was nominated as a Shooting Star for the Swedish Netflix Original series Snabba Cash, adapted from best-selling author Jens Lapidus’ Stockholm Noir crime trilogy.
Souheila Yacoub from Switzerland is “a revelation and a shooting star in the truest sense.” The jury lauds her “tremendous ability to empathize with her characters in a way that evokes a strong resonance”. Yacoub has already worked with renowned directors such as Gaspard Noé and Philippe Garrel, starred in the series Les Sauvages and No Man’s Land and was at this year's Cannes Film Festival with two films in which she plays the leading roles: Des bas étage by Yassine Qnia and in the nominated film The Braves by Anaïs Volpe.
This year’s hybrid programme for the Shooting Stars provides a tailormade platform for the talent to meet journalists, casting directors, producers and filmmakers both online and on-site, offering a unique opportunity to create the personal contacts and network needed to embark upon an international career. The busy weekend culminates in an awards ceremony at the Berlinale Palast on Monday 14th February, where each actress and actor will be honoured with the EUROPEAN SHOOTING STARS Award.
Throughout its 25 years, EUROPEAN SHOOTING STARS has been an important stepping-stone for an actor's international career - notable Shooting Stars of recent years include: Matilda de Angelis (Atlas, The Undoing), Carey Mulligan (The Dig, Promising Young Woman, The Great Gatsby), Alba Rohrwacher (Happy as Lazzaro), Oscar-winner Alicia Vikander (Beckett, Tomb Raider), Maisie Williams (Game of Thrones), Riz Ahmed (Encounter, Sound of Metal, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, Mogul Mowgli), George MacKay (Munich – The Edge of War, 1917), and Jannis Niewöhner (Kids Run, Je suis Karl)
EUROPEAN SHOOTING STARS is made possible thanks to the support of Creative Europe – the MEDIA Programme of the European Union, the German Federal Commissioner for Culture and Media, Film- und Medienstiftung NRW, Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg, Spotlight and L'Oréal, as well as the participating national film promotion institutes from the Shooting Stars' countries, EFP’s member organisations - with a special thanks to German Films: Croatian Audiovisual Centre, Danish Film Institute, German Films, Instituto do Cinema e do Audiovisual I.P. / ICA (Portugal), Screen Ireland / Fís Éireann, SEE NL (The Netherlands), Slovenian Film Centre, Swedish Film Institute, SWISS FILMS and UniFrance. Main media partner is Variety, with additional media partners: Screen International, Cineuropa, Blickpunkt:Film, HeyUGuys and Festival Scope.
Agentfirman
Sweden
Evin Ahmad, a Swedish - Kurdish actress and writer has quickly become one of Sweden’s most talented and sought-after young talents. Ahmad has been nominated twice for the Guldbagge Awards (in 2018 for Dröm Vidare and in 2020 for Call Mom!), Sweden’s equivalent to the Academy Awards. Currently, Ahmad is set to star in the second season of the Swedish Netflix Original series Snabba Cash, adapted from best-selling author Jens Lapidus' Stockholm Noir crime trilogy. Ahmad is also known for starring in three seasons of the Danish post-apocalyptic Netflix series The Rain and in the Netflix Swedish crime drama series Quicksand. Her film debut came in 2007 with an adaptation of Jonas Hassen Khemiri’s novel One Eye Red. Additional credits include Girls of the Sun, Tsunami and The Restaurant. In 2017, Ahmad's first novel, One Day I Will Build a Castle of Money, was published. The novel discusses the inequality in Sweden between the suburbs and the inner city and has been described as “a brilliantly written and stylistically perfect debut about power and class, guilt and legacy.”
Evin Ahmad
Sweden
The Lisa Richards Agency
Ireland
Clare Dunne graduated from the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama and was immediately cast in a lead role in the Druid Theatre Company’s acclaimed production of Playboy of the Western World directed by Garry Hynes. She’s since appeared in numerous theatre productions across Ireland and the UK, notably in the Donmar Warehouse as Portia in Julius Caesar directed by Phyllida Lloyd which transferred to St Ann’s Warehouse, Brooklyn. She went on to appear as Prince Hal in Phyllida Lloyd’s acclaimed production of Henry IV which also transferred to the new St Ann’s Warehouse to huge critical acclaim. Dunne has also had a heady past two years on the big and small screen. She starred as Amanda, the female lead in the first season of the acclaimed BRON/AMC+ and RTE series, KIN. She wrote and starred in Herself (Element Films), directed by Phyllida Lloyd, which premiered at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival to rave reviews and was picked up for international distribution by Amazon Studios. The film won the Women Film Critic Circle Award for 2021 and the Dublin International Film Festival Discovery Award (for Clare Dunne) as well as the Human Rights Film Award in 2020.
Clare Dunne
Ireland
Olivia Bell Management
Croatia
Born in Croatia, Gracija Filipović received her theatre training in Dubrovnik and shot her first film in 2014. Her collaborative work with director Antoneta Alamat Kusijanović includes two award-winning films which have brought her both international recognition and acclaim. In Kusijanović's short film, Into the Blue, Filipović plays an emotionally scarred young women, desperate to reconnect with her best friend. The film won numerous awards, including a Special Mention at the Berlinale's Generation programme, the Heart of Sarajevo Award for Best Short Film and the Prize of the Youth Jury at the highly regarded Oberhausen Short Film Festival. It was also a finalist for the Student Academy Award. Filipović's debut in a feature film was in Kusijanović's Murina, which premiered in the Director's Fortnight of the Cannes Film Festival and won the prestigious Caméra d'Or. Apart from her award-winning acting career, Filipović is a professional swimmer and tap dancer. In her spare time, she is studying biology in Zagreb.
Gracija Filipović
Croatia
Elite Lisbon
Portugal
João Nunes Monteiro trained as an actor at Academia Contemporânea do Espetáculo in Porto and completed a BA in Acting from Lisbon’s Theatre and Film School. On stage, Monteiro has worked with noteable theatre directors such as Victor Hugo Pontes, Nuno Carinhas, Sónia Baptista and Miguel Fragata. He made his feature film debut at the age of 16 in Francisco Manso’s Aristides de Sousa Mendes. He has since worked with directors such as Dennis Berry, Ivo M. Ferreira, João Nicolau, Zara Dwinger and Vasco Saltão. He played the lead role in the feature film Mosquito by João Nuno Pinto, which was honored with the Portuguese Film Academy Nico Award. He also starred in Miguel Gomes and Maureen Fazendeiro’s The Tsugua Diaries which premiered in this year's Director’s Fortnight at the Cannes Film Festival. Recently, Monteiro won the Portuguese Cinema Academy Sophia Awards as Best Actor for his work in Mosquito. He was also nominated as Best Actor for his performance in the film by the Portuguese Golden Globes.
João Nunes Monteiro
Portugal
Lindberg Management ApS
Denmark
Marie Reuther hails from Denmark and received her theatre training at the Danish National School of the Performing Arts, graduating in 2020. Prior to that, in 2017, she had started acting in various short films and on the stage. Reuther's international breakthrough came when she was cast in the leading role in HBO’s first Danish-language original, the mystery thriller, Kamikaze, which had its broadcast premiere in November 2021. Reuther's role required that she be in almost every shot of the 8-part series, building a strong and empathetic character along the way. For her performance, she was honoured with the esteemed Best Actress Award in the International Competition at Series Mania in Lille, France in 2021. In addition to Kamikaze, Reuther recently had her debut at The Royal Danish Theatre in Molière’s final work, The Imaginary Invalid.
Marie Reuther
Denmark
SENKBEIL PR
Germany
Emilio Sakraya, born in Berlin, started his career at the age of nine and simply never stopped. His big screen debut was in 2010 in Electro Ghetto, produced by Bernd Eichinger. From 2014 to 2016 he had a recurring role in the successful German film series Bibi and Tina and in 2016, he was cast in the critically acclaimed international crime series 4 Blocks as well as in the feature, Rock My Heart. For his performance in Tatort: Das Verschwundene Kind he was nominated for Studio Hamburg's prestigious Young Talent Award. In 2018 he was cast as the lead in Wolfgang Groos' Cold Feet which was quickly followed in 2019 by the role of JC in the international Netflix drama series Warrior Nun and as the lead in the Netflix original series Tribes of Europa. In 2020, Sakraya took on the lead role in Til Schweiger's The Salvation of the World as We Know It. This was followed by the lead in One Night Off the first original feature film made by Amazon Studios Germany. Sakraya recently finished shooting Fatih Akin's newest feature, Rheingold. And just to keep busy, in September 2020, Sakraya released his first music album, Roter Sand, which was followed by the singles Winter and Danke in 2021.
Emilio Sakraya
Germany
Olivia Bell Management
Slovenia
Timon Sturbej was born in Maribor, Slovenia. He graduated from the Academy of Theatre, Radio, Film and Television in Ljubljana and is a company member of the Slovenian National Theatre in Ljubljana, Slovenia. Before being accepted to the Academy, he won the Best Actor Award at the 2013 Teatralny Koufar theatre festival in Minsk Belarus, for his performance in the role of Amor in Moliere's Psyche. In 2017 he was honored with the student Sever Award - named after legendary Slovene actor Stane Sever and awarded by a professional jury - for his role as Bernie in David Mamet's Sexual Perversity. In 2018, for the role as Žele in the film Consequences directed by Darko Štante, Sturbej was awarded with a Vesna as Best Supporting Actor at the Festival of Slovenian Film. Most recently he has completed production on Riders, directed by Dominik Mencej and Wake Me, directed by Marko Šantić. He is currently in production on the TV mini-series, Inhumanum: The Inhumanity of Many, directed by Igor Zupe.
Timon Sturbej
Slovenia
UBBA
France
Anamaria Vartolomei, a French-Romanian actress, began her career at the tender age of 11 opposite Isabelle Huppert in My Little Princess, directed by Eva Ionesco, for which she won Best Actress at the 2012 Festival de la Ciotat. Since then, she has barely stopped. In 2014, she appeared in Jacky in the Kingdom of Women, directed by Riad Sattouf, with Charlotte Gainsbourg. In 2016, she was cast in Tran Anh Hung’s Eternity alongside Bérénice Béjo, Audrey Tautou and Mélanie Laurent, and had leading roles in Frédéric Beigbeder’s The Ideal with Audrey Fleurot and in My Revolution directed by Ramzi Ben Sliman. In 2017, she starred opposite Lambert Wilson in the historical drama The Royal Exchange, directed by Marc Dugain. In 2020, Anamaria was cast in How to Be a Good Wife directed by Martin Provost and in Just Kids directed by Christoph Blanc, for which she was nominated as Young Actress at the César Awards. Vartolomei was most recently cast in the leading role in Happening, directed by Audrey Diwan, which won the Golden Lion at the 2021 Venice Film Festival.
Anamaria Vartolomei
France
Adéquat - Agence Artistique
Switzerland
Souheila Yacoub was born in Geneva to a Flemish mother and a Tunisian father. She devoted her childhood and adolescence to sports and joined the Swiss National Rhythmic Gymnastics Team as an elite athlete. She attended a theatre and dance school in Geneva, then obtained a scholarship and went to Paris to take part in the “classe libre” at the Cours Florent before entering the Conservatoire National Supérieur d'Art Dramatique. Soon, Lebanese-Canadian director Wajdi Mouawad offered her a role in the multi-lingual play, Tous des oiseaux. Souheila charmed the press as well as the public: her career was launched, and the cinema world was quickly very interested in the actress. For her supporting role in Climax by Gaspard Noé, which premiered in Cannes 2019, she was selected as Revelation for the Académie des César. In 2020, she was cast in Le sel des larmes by Philippe Garrel which premiered at the Berlinale, and recently in De bas étages by Yassine Qnia. In 2019, Yacoub appeared for the first time as one of the leads in a high profile drama series Les Sauvages directed by Rebecca Zlotowski and in 2020 in the Arte/Hulu epic war series No Man's Land directed by Oded Ruskin. Entre les vagues by Anaïs Volpé, in which Yacoub plays the leading role and De bas étage were both screened in Cannes’ Directors Fortnight in 2021. In 2022, she will feature in Cédric Klapisch’s dance-based film En corps and in Alice and Benoît Zeniter’s first feature film Avant l’effondrement.
Souheila Yacoub
Switzerland
Solid Base Management
The Netherlands
Hanna van Vliet studied Drama and Contemporary Music Theatre at Amsterdam University of the Arts, where she graduated in 2014. A Golden Calf nominated actress and creator, she plays the lead role in the internationally acclaimed drama series, ANNE+, which she co-created. ANNE+ has received two nominations for the Prix Europe award as well as a Golden Calf award for van Vliet as “Best Actress in a Drama Series" at the Netherlands Film Festival in 2020. A feature version of ANNE+ with van Vliet in the leading role premiered in October 2021. Her career also includes two nominations for a Musical Award for Fiddler on the Roof and De Tweeling. Her recent work includes the lead roles in the features Quicksand, which premiered at the Netherlands Film Festival in September 2021 and Lost Transport, due for release in early 2022. She is currently filming the high-end drama series, De Droom van de Jeugd. Van Vliet is an advocate for a broad representation of female leads and queer characters in the (Dutch) film and TV landscape.
Hanna van Vliet
The Netherlands
