Matthijs Wouter Knol Appointed New Director of European Film Academy

The European Film Academy (EFA) announced today that Matthijs Wouter Knol will be the new director of EFA from January 2021.

Born in the Netherlands, Matthijs Wouter Knol studied contemporary history at the University of Leiden (Netherlands) and the Royal Dutch Institute in Rome (Italy) before working as a freelance journalist and in the production of films, specialising in documentaries. He then worked for the Amsterdam International Documentary Film Festival (IDFA), was director of the Berlinale Talents programme for six years and, since 2014, has been director of the European Film Market.

Matthijs Wouter Knol will remain in this position at the Berlinale until he joins the EFA team in November 2020 in order to prepare for his resumption of the responsibilities of Marion Döring as EFA director in January 2021.
 
Marion Döring, who will retire from her current post as director of EFA, has been linked to the history of the European Film Academy from its very beginnings in 1988: first as public relations manager for the European Film Awards, then as project manager of the Academy's activities and publications and, since 1996, as director of the Academy. She explained: "I know Matthijs and have followed his work closely for many years, from his time at the Berlinale Talents to his achievements as director of the European Film Market. His deep professional expertise, his personality and his energy form the ideal combination to lead EFA into a new era. Leaving the Academy in your hands seems like a perfect accomplishment of my work for EFA".

EFA President Mike Downey added: "The arrival of someone of the quality and caliber of Matthijs to lead the Academy in the next phase of his career [is] making Marion Döring's departure a little easier. Succeeding Marion is not easy, but if someone is up to it, it's Matthijs, whose depth of knowledge integrated vertically and horizontally in the European cinema industry and European cinema itself. even is without equal".
 
Commenting on his appointment, Matthijs Wouter Knol said: "For the past 20 years, it has always been a driving force for me to create spaces within the film industry in which people feel comfortable, feel seen, feel [the] love of European cinema, connecting people with each other, being curious, wanting to speak when the human right to express oneself in cinema is threatened or violated, and having the ambition to give to Academy this next leap into the future is what motivates me. My deep feeling is that the European Film Academy will increasingly be a dynamic platform and the right place to bring together the best of energy, the best of talent and the best ideas available in Europe - and by doing so will broaden its scope".