From 2024, each of the 15 EFA board members will be selected from 15 distinct geographical or linguistic regions in Europe, each comprising different countries. In addition, a board seat will be set aside for a transnational ethnic representative from either the Sámi or Roma populations in Europe. The first mandate for this seat will be for an elected member from the Sámi population.

The remaining three board members, including the chair and two deputy chairs, will not be picked based on their region of origin.

The changes will take place in two stages: A six-week self-nomination period, starting in mid-August, and board elections, which will begin in October and last another six weeks. The new board will be announced at the Academy’s general assembly in early December and new members will take up their mandates in January. Current board members who were elected in December last year will remain on the job until the end of their mandate in late 2024.

“These changes will make for a more diverse and more democratically representative board to serve the European Film Academy,” said the EFA Chair Mike Downey. “We are making a number of structural changes to the way the Academy is run, in order to bring it up to date with contemporary best practices, and this is just one of the changes which will help us serve our membership better, and provide a voice for some of those territories which have occasionally been marginalized or sidelined, not through any malign will, but simply by virtue of their geo-political location. In making these changes we will now rectify and recalibrate and the Academy will emerge stronger, more inclusive and fit for purpose for 2023 and years to come.”

Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia, Slovenia
Austria, Germany, Switzerland, Liechtenstein (as of 2025, after current mandates end)
Belarus, Kazakhstan, Russia (as of 2025)
Belgium, Luxembourg, Netherlands
France, Monaco
Ireland, UK
Italy, Malta, San Marino
Poland, Ukraine
Andorra, Portugal, Spain
Turkey, Azerbaijan, Palestine
Bulgaria, Moldova, Romania
Armenia, Cyprus, Georgia, Greece, Israel
Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia
Denmark, Finland, Greenland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden
Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania

Currently, representatives from Western European countries are over-represented on the EFA board compared to Eastern and Southeastern members. At the moment, 25 percent of board members represent Eastern and Southeastern European countries. With the restructuring, those regional groups will account for 50 percent of all board seats.

The European Film Academy, first set up in 1989, represents filmmakers across 52 European countries in Europe, as well as in Israel and Palestine.