REFLECTIONS ON FILM CULTURE

DAILY | AMOUR Takes Top European Film Awards

By David Hudson

European Film Awards

Michael Haneke‘s Amour has not only been named European Film 2012 (the other nominees: Christian Petzold‘s Barbara, Paolo and Vittorio Taviani‘s Caesar Must Die, Thomas Vinterberg’s The Hunt, Olivier Nakache and Eric Toledano’s Intouchables, and Steve McQueen’s Shame) at this evening’s European Film Awards, but has also won European Director 2012 (the other nominees: Nuri Bilge Ceylan for Once Upon a Time in Anatolia, Steve McQueen for Shame, Paolo and Vittorio Taviani for Caesar Must Die, and Thomas Vinterberg for The Hunt), European Actress 2012 for Emmanuelle Riva (the other nominees: Emilie Dequenne in Our Children, Nina Hoss in Barbara, Margarethe Tiesel in Paradise: Love, and Kate Winslet in Carnage), and European Actor 2012 for Jean-Louis Trintignant (the other nominees: François Cluzet and Omar Sy in Intouchables, Michael Fassbender in Shame, Mads Mikkelsen in The Hunt, and Gary Oldman in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy).

European Screenwriter 2012 goes to Tobias Lindholm and Thomas Vinterberg for The Hunt. The other nominees: Michael Haneke for Amour, Cristian Mungiu for Beyond the Hills, Olivier Nakache and Eric Toledano for Intouchables, and Roman Polanski and Yasmina Reza for Carnage.

Steve McQueen’s Shame has won two awards, the Carlo Di Palma European Cinematographer Award 2012 for Sean Bobbitt (also nominated: Bruno Delbonnel for Faust, Darius Khondji for Amour, Gökhan Tiryaki for Once Upon a Time in Anatolia, and Hoyte Van Hoytema for Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy) and European Editor 2012 for Joe Walker (also nominated: Janus Billeskov Jansen and Anne Østerud for The Hunt and Roberto Perpignani for Caesar Must Die).

Tomas Alfredson’s Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy has also won two: European Production Designer 2012 for Maria Djurkovic (the other nominees: Niels Sejer for A Royal Affair and Elena Zhukova for Faust) and European Composer 2012 for Alberto Iglesias (also nominated: Cyrille Aufort and Gabriel Yared for A Royal Affair, François Couturier for Shun Li and the Poet, and George Fenton for The Angels’ Share).

European Documentary 2012: Manuel von Stürler’s Winter Nomads. Julien Temple’s London: The Modern Babylon and Jérôme le Maire’s Tea or Electricity were also nominated.

Boudewijn Koole’s Kauwboy has won the European Discovery Award (Prix Fipresci) and a special audience award presented by 700 young jurors. The other nominees: Rufus Norris’s Broken, Jan Speckenbach’s Reported Missing, Mads Matthiesen’s Teddy Bear, and Angelina Nikonova’s Twilight Portrait.

The award for European Film Academy Animated Feature Film goes to Tomas Lunak’s Alois Nebel. The other nominees: Peter Lord’s The Pirates! and Ignacio Ferreras’s Wrinkles.

The People’s Choice Award goes to Geoffrey Enthoven’s Hasta La Vista! (Come As You Are).

The Prix EUROIMAGES goes to Swedish producer Helena Danielsson.

Tudor Giurgiu has won the award for European Film Academy Short Film for Superman, Spiderman or Batman.

And Michael Gambon’s presented the European Achievement in World Cinema 2012 to Helen Mirren, while European Film Academy president Wim Wenders and actress Marisa Paredes have presented the Lifetime Achievement Award to Bernardo Bertolucci.

Update, 12/2: The Guardian‘s Catherine Shoard gets a few words with Mirren and generally introduces the event to British readers: “Voted for by more than 2,700 academy members, the EFAs cheerlead for the continent’s storytelling flair, with large portions of Saturday evening’s ceremony devoted to videotape of luminaries such as David Puttnam and Ken Loach lamenting what is perceived as Hollywood’s stranglehold over global distribution and proposing solutions. The Turkish director Fatih Akin went so far as to advocate forced screenings of European movies… At a press conference following the three-and-a-half-hour event, Haneke dismissed interest in awards buzz and was courteously curt about the importance of any formal accolade. ‘It’s very pleasant. The respect of any viewer is important to me.’ He declined to talk about any future projects, as ‘you don’t talk about eggs that have not yet fallen from the chicken.'”

Update, 12/3: “The underlying message of the evening,” reports Guy Lodge, who was in Malta for In Contention, “was perhaps one of guarded celebration: to see, love and reward the best in European film now, since we may not have it this good again…. It’s fitting, though, that the night’s big winner, Amour, is a model of old-school arthouse classicism, a European film that could have been made, admired and garlanded in any era. It’d be a daring choice for the American Academy, but for these awards, it’s effectively down-the-line bait; its sweep was as predictable as it was deserved.”

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