The European Shooting Stars Programme successfully wraps its 24th edition following three days of activities in its first ever digital 'Home of Acting Talent'

The three-day online programme for this year's European Shooting Stars, which ran from 23 to 25 February, has been successfully wrapped up. Starting with a Kick-off show to introduce this year's cohort, hosted by British broadcaster Edith Bowman and joined by special guests Matilda de Angelis and Pilou Asbaek, the programme also included individual interviews, 1:1 industry meetings and industry panels.

"We are so delighted that these outstanding ten Shooting Stars accepted our invitation to this year's online edition and that they enjoyed their time in our brad new digital 'Home of Acting Talent'. We felt a true sense of intimacy and a team spirit despite each Star joining from their own home country. Of course, this doesn't replace the physical contact and exchange that we are all longing to have at the summer events of the Berlinale and we look forward meeting in person. Our sincere thanks go to our partners, members, the media partners, the industry and to everyone who joined us on this exciting adventure," says EFP's Managing Director Sonja Heinen.

The Kick-off show presented by EFP and Variety, hosted by Edith Bowman was followed by about 1662 viewers via YouTube on the day of broadcast. The 3 top-class online panels about casting including Bridgerton's and Ma Rainey's Black Bottom's casting directors Kelly Valentine Hendry and Avy Kaufman have been watched by 2426 viewers. Over the two industry days, the 10 Stars individually met a total of 62 casting directors and talent agents from 21 countries, and were interviewed by 42 journalists from 20 countries, with a total 79 interviews.

Due to the pandemic, the European Shooting Stars 2021 Programme was held online for the first time, to great success. The Shooting Stars Award Ceremony will take place in June during the Berlinale Summer Special.

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 the Media, Film- und Medienstiftung NRW, Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg and Spotlight, as well as the participating national film promotion institutes from the Shooting Stars' countries - with a special thanks to German Films: Finnish Film Foundation, German Films, Lithuanian Film Centre, Instituto do Cinema e do Audiovisual I.P. / ICA (Portugal), National Film Institute Hungary, North Macedonia Film Agency, SEE NL (The Netherlands), Swedish Film Institute and UniFrance. Main media partner is Variety, further media partners are Screen International, Cineuropa, Blickpunkt:Film, HeyUGuys, Fade to Her and Festival Scope.