The best European youth film of the year will be selected on 6 May 2018. Young people from 45 cities in 36 countries will screen three films that are running parallel in those different places of the world. At the end, they choose the winner of the 7th EFA Young Audience Award.

The International Film Festival for Children and Young Audience SCHLINGEL is also sending a youth jury, consisting of students between the ages of 12 and 14. The screening will take place on Sunday in the cinema of the association organizing the SCHLINGEL (Neefestraße 99). The international jury members can get in touch with each other via chat and live transmission, while Facebook allows discussions with the filmmakers of the nominated films during the breaks. The aim of the event is to promote European film culture, which is also an intention of the Film Festival SCHLINGEL.

The following films apply for the Young Audience Award 2018:

• La Fuga - Girl in Flight (Italy / Switzerland 2017, feature film) directed by Sandra Vannucchi (screenplay: Sandra Vannucchi & Michael King)
• Hobbyhorse Revolution (Finland 2017, documentary) directed by Selma Vilhunen (screenplay: Selma Vilhunen & Okku Nuutilainen)
• Wallay (France / Burkina Faso / Qatar 2017, feature film) by director Berni Goldblat (screenplay: David Bouchet).

An international committee consisting of festival organizers, EFA Academy board members and film journalists selected this year's nominees.

In addition to Chemnitz, other German events are held in Berlin and Erfurt. Erfurt will also host the award ceremony in the evening. It will be moderated by the German actress Gesa Dreckmann and can be followed live at www.yaa.europeanfilmawards.eu, starting at 8 pm. From May 7, all nominated films from 2015 to 2018 will be available to a larger young audience via VoD platforms such as iTunes, Google Play, Microsoft and Pantaflix, but also Cinesquare, Filmin or Univerciné.