Sentimental Value Sweeps European Film Awards

Sentimental Value was the big winner at the 38th European Film Awards, with Joachim Trier’s Norwegian melodrama winning best film, as well as best director and twin acting honors for Stellan Skarsgard and Renate Reinsve.

Trier and Eskil Vogt also won best screenplay honors for their script to Sentimental Value, and Hania Rani took the prize for best score.

The EFAs made a shift from December to mid-January this year, in the hope of boosting buzz around European contenders for international honors.

It appears to be working.

Sentimental Value, already a frontrunner for the Oscars, where many have tipped it as a best picture nominee, Skarsgard and Reinsve as actor contenders, and Trier as a possible best director nominee, should get a nice awards bump from the EFA honors.

Oliver Laxe‘s Sirāt, Spain’s official Oscar contender, won multiple EFAs, taking best production design, sound design, editing, best cinematography, and the inaugural best casting award. Sound of Falling, Germany’s entry for the best international feature honor at the U.S. Academy Awards, took the trophy for European Costume Design.

Another Oscar hopeful, Ugo Bienvenu’s hopeful animated fantasy Arco, won the top prize for European Animation Feature Film. Torsten Witte took the first-ever hair and make-up EFA honor for Bugonia.

But anyone expecting an Oscar-style awards ceremony on Saturday, or a “no politics please” event akin to the Golden Globes, were in for a surprise. Politics were front-and-center at the EFAs from the get-go.

Iranian director Panahi took the stage, to a standing ovation, ahead of the ceremony to read a statement about the dire situation in his home country. Decrying the violence of the regime in Tehran, and the massacre of anti-government protestors, he called on the world to speak out and take action.

“This is not just the pain of one country if the world does not respond to this blatant violence today. Not only Iran but the entire world is at risk,” he said. “Violence left unanswered becomes normalized and when it become normalized, it’s spread become contagious. When the truth is crushed in one place, freedom suffocates everywhere. Then no-one is safe. Anywhere in the world, not in Iran, not in Europe, not in America… that is precisely why today as filmmakers and artists more than ever, if we are disappointed with politicians, we must at least must refuse to remain silent because silence in a time of crime is not neutrality silence, silence is a participation in darkness.”

Panahi was speaking ten days into a brutal crackdown of nationwide protests by Iran’s hardline government. At least 3,000 protestors are believed to have been killed and another 18,000 arrested. In his speech, Panahi spoke of a reported 12,000 deaths.

Liv Ullmann, the two-time Oscar-nominated Norwegian actress and director, best known for such 1970s classics asCries and Whispers, andScenes From a Marriage,received the EFA’s lifetime achievement honor. She used the opportunity to take a sly jab at Trump, noting that Norway has a rule “that if you misuse the Nobel Prize, we take it away from you,” a reference to Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado’s decision, widely criticized, to give her Nobel peace prize medal to Trump. “Somebody in power in the United States may be disappointed. He will lose it.”

Alice Rohrwacher, the Italian director ofLa Chimera,Futura, andHappy as Lazzarowas honoredwith the European Achievement in World Cinema Award. She dedicated it to “my great love, my sister [actress] Alba”. She added a political coda, calling on the audience to remain “obstinate and contrary” in the face of those who call for “war, new weapons and extractivism — as if the world were a cash mine” to remind them “that we are many.”

Check out the full list of winners below.

EUROPEAN FILM

Afternoons of Solitude
Arco
Dog of God
Fiume o Morte!, dir. Igor Bezinović
It Was Just an Accident, dir. Jafar Panahi
Little Amelie, dir. Maïlys Vallade and Liane-Cho Han
Olivia and the Invisible Earthquake, dir. Irene Iborra Rizo
Riefenstahl, dir. Andres Veiel
Sentimental Value, dir. Joachim Trier (WINNER)
Sirāt, dir. Oliver Laxe
Songs of Slow Burning Earth, dir. Olha Zhurba
Sound of Falling, dir. Mascha Schilinski
Tales From the Magic Garden, dir. David Súkup, Patrik Pašš, Leon Vidmar and Jean-Claude Rozec
The Voice of Hind Rajab, dir. Kaouther Ben Hania
With Hasan in Gaza, dir. Kamal Aljafari

EUROPEAN DIRECTOR

Yorgos Lanthimos forBugonia
Oliver Laxe forSirāt
Jafar Panahi forIt Was Just an Accident
Mascha Schilinski forSound of Falling
Joachim Trier forSentimental Value (WINNER)

EUROPEAN ACTRESS

Leonie Benesch forLate Shift
Valeria Bruni Tedeschi forDuse
Léa Drucker forCase 137
Vicky Krieps forLove Me Tender
Renate Reinsve forSentimental Value (WINNER)

EUROPEAN ACTOR

Sergi López forSirāt
Mads Mikkelsen forThe Last Viking
Toni Servillo forLa Grazia
Stellan Skarsgård forSentimental Value (WINNER)
Idan Weiss forFranz

EUROPEAN SCREENWRITER

Santiago Fillol and Oliver Laxe forSirāt
Jafar Panahi forIt Was Just an Accident
Mascha Schilinski and Louise Peter forSound of Falling
Paolo Sorrentino forLa Grazia
Eskil Vogt and Joachim Trier forSentimental Value (WINNER)

EUROPEAN DOCUMENTARY

Afternoons of Solitude, dir. Albert Serra
Fiume o Morte!, dir. Igor Bezinović (WINNER)
Riefenstahl, dir. Andres Veiel
Songs of Slow Burning Earth, dir. Olha Zhurba
With Hasan in Gaza, dir. Kamal Aljafari

EUROPEAN ANIMATED FEATURE FILM

Arco (WINNER)
Dog of God
Little Amelie
Olivia and the Invisible Earthquake
Tales From the Magic Garden

EUROPEAN COMPOSER (BEST SCORE)

Hania Rani for Sentimental Value (WINNER)
Jerskin Fendrix for Bugonia
Michael Fiedler, Eike Hosenfeld for Sound of Falling

EUROPEAN CINEMATOGRAPHER

Mauro Herce for Sirāt (WINNER)
Fabian Gamper for Sound of Falling
Manu Dacosse for The Stranger

EUROPEAN EDITOR

Yorgos Mavropsaridis for Bugonia
Toni Froschhammer for Die My Love
Cristóbal Fernández for Sirāt (WINNER)

EUROPEAN PRODUCTION DESIGNER

James Price for Bugonia
Jørgen Stangebye Larsen for Sentimental Value
Laia Ateca for Sirāt (WINNER)

EUROPEAN COSTUME DESIGNER

Ursula Patzak for Duse
Michaela Horáčková Hořejší for Franz
Sabrina Krämer for Sound of Falling (WINNER)

EUROPEAN CASTING DIRECTOR

Yngvill Kolset Haga and Avy Kaufman for Sentimental Value
Nadia Acimi, Luís Bértolo and María Rodrigo for Sirāt (WINNER)
Karimah El-Giamal and Jacqueline Rietz for Sound of Falling

EUROPEAN MAKE-UP & HAIR ARTIST

Torsten Witte for Bugonia (WINNER)
Gabriela Poláková for Franz
Irina Schwarz and Anne-Marie Walther for Sound of Falling

EUROPEAN SOUND DESIGNER

Johnnie Burn for Bugonia
Laia Casanovas, Amanda Villavieja and Yasmina Praderas for Sirāt (WINNER)
Gwennolé Le Borgne, Marion Papinot, Lars Ginzel, Elias Boughedir and Amal Attia for The Voice of Hind Rajab

EUROPEAN DISCOVERY – PRIX FIPRESCI

Little Trouble Girls, dir. Urška Djukić
My Father’s Shadow, dir. Akinola Davies Jr
On Falling, dir. Laura Carreira (WINNER)
One of Those Days When Hemme Dies, dir. Murat Fıratoğlu
Sauna, dir. Mathias Broe
Under the Grey Sky, dir. Mara Tamkovich

EUROPEAN YOUNG AUDIENCE AWARD

Arco
I Accidentally Wrote a Book
Siblings (WINNER)

LUX AUDIENCE AWARD

Christy
Deaf
It Was Just an Accident
Love Me Tender
Sentimental Value

EUROPEAN SHORT FILM – PRIX VIMEO

Being John Smith
City of Poets (WINNER)
L’Avance
Man Number 4
The Flowers Stand Silently, Witnessing