and practical training. The high-profile list of former masters includes renowned film professionals such as Jean-Jacques Annaud, Jan De Bont, Henning Carlsen, André Delvaux, Bernd Eichinger, Krzysztof Kieślowski, Jiří Menzel, Tilda Swinton, István Szabó, Marc Weigert, Mike Newell, Tsui Hark, Allan Starski and Anthony Dod Mantle. European Film Awards The annual European Film Awards ceremony (until 1997 known as FELIX) is the most high-profile activity of the European Film Academy. With the awards the Academy pursues the following aims: attracting the interest of the audience in European cinema, promoting its cultural and artistic qualities, and regaining the public's confidence in its entertainment value. To put these ideas into practice, the People's Choice Award was added as a new category in 1997. As of 2020, the People's Choice Award merged with the Lux Award of the European Parliament into the joint initiative LUX Audience Award. The nominees for the LUX Audience Award are announced during the ceremony of the European Film Awards. After this, screenings of the nominated films are organised for the public in several European cities. The members of the European Film Academy actively participate in the selection, nomination and awarding procedures for the European Film Awards. Taking place in the second weekend of December, the European Film Awards are the first in the international awards season. Most of the nominees and winners of the European Film Awards are found in the following months among the nominees and winners of the Golden Globes or the Oscars. In the past years, European producers and distributors repeatedly stressed that a nomination for or win at the European Film Awards had a positive impact on the chances for their films to win further international awards, such as a Golden Globe or an Oscar. Sidebar events Throughout the year, the academy organises a sidebar programme on the occasion of the European Film Awards. Originally, this was a week-end with panel discussions and conferences in the city where the Awards ceremony would take place. At these events, innovative production methods for the new millennium were discussed at the conference (Berlin 1999), or European filmmakers of international reputation (among them, Wim Wenders, Liv Ullmann, Tom Tykwer, Dominik Moll, Pavel Lungin, Maria de Medeiros) as well as the then EU commissioner Viviane Reding made very personal and visionary speeches on the artistic, cultural, and social role of cinema in front of 800 guests at Theâtre de