EUROPEAN FILM AWARDS 2020
Thomas Vinterberg’s Another Round swept the European Film Awards winning in each of its categories: Film, Director, Actor (Mads Mikkelsen) and Screenwriter (Vinterberg and Tobias Lindholm). The drama that’s Denmark’s entry for the International Feature Oscar is also the biggest film at the Danish box office this year and has continued to scoop prizes from San Sebastian to London. The story of four weary high school teachers who test the theory that a constant level of modest inebriation opens our minds to the world, takes them on a journey of self-discovery with both tragic and uplifting consequences.
On accepting the top prize duringthe virtual EFA ceremony, Vinterbergsaid, “Noneofmyfilms ever could ever have been made without the support systems of my country and of European filmmaking in general. My first film was about child abuse, my second one about the same and now we’ve made a film about four heterosexual white males teaching youngsters to drink. It could never have been possible outside of this continent and I’m super proud to be awarded in this continent.”
The best actress honor went to Paula Beer for the titular role in Christian Petzold’s love story Undine, a variation on the myth of water nymph Undine, who must kill every lover who leaves her.
Best European documentary went to Alexander Nanau for Collective, a furious look at hospital corruption in Romania, which is also an inside look at investigative journalism.
Mikkelsen, accepting his prize for best actor, dedicated it to Ida’s memory. “She shines in every frame of this film,” he said.
“She died during the making of the project. She was supposed to be a part of it. It was shot at her school, in her classroom,” Vinterberg said, accepting the best film honor,” adding that it only made sense to dedicate the award to her, as he has already done with the film itself.
The European Discovery — Prix Fipresci for a work by a first-time director, went to Italian filmmaker Carlo Sironi for his debut Sole, a hardhitting drama about a pregnant woman from Eastern Europe who comes to Italy to sell her unborn child.
Irish director and film historian Marc Cousins won the inaugural EFA Award for Innovative Storytelling for his groundbreaking, 14-hour documentary Women Make Films.
Portuguese producer Luís Urbano of Lisbon’s O Som e a Fúria shingle won the Eurimages Co-Production Award for his contribution as a co-producer on such features as Ira Sachs’ Frankie, Joao Nicolau’s Technoboss, and Goncalo Waddington’s Patrick. Hidden Away, Giorgio Diritti’s portrait of self-taught Italian painter Antonio Ligabue, won European Film honors for best cinematography (for cameraman Matteo Cocco) and for Ursula Patzak for best costume design. Dascha Dauenhauer won best original score for her soundtrack to Burhan Qurbani’s Berlin Alexanderplatz, a modern-day adaptation of Alfred Döblin’s 1929 literary classic.
Earlier in the month of December 2020, Polish filmmaker Agnieszka Holland was elected as the new president of the European Film Academy, succeeding Wim Wenders. Holland, also a nominee for European Director for “Charlatan,” was on hand to present awards. “Phantom Thread” star Vicky Krieps presented the award for European Director to Thomas Vinterberg for ” Another Round”. The film also grabbed the actor prize for lead Mads Mikkelsen, and screenplay for Vinterberg and Tobias Lindholm. Paula Beer took the Actress award for her performance in Christian Petzold’s “Undine.” On the occasion of the 33rd European Film Awards on 12 December, the European Film Academy is introducing a new award category – the EFA Award for Innovative Storytelling. In its first edition, the award is presented to director Mark Cousins for WOMEN MAKE FILM: A NEW ROAD MOVIE THROUGH CINEMA.
The European Film Academy introduces this new category to reflect the changes in the cinematic landscape and to celebrate the great innovative achievements in European storytelling. “The cultural narrative of the history of cinema has largely been viewed from the male perspective since the movies began over a century ago,” says EFA Chairman Mike Downey, “Mark Cousins’ completely epic and utterly essential WOMEN MAKE FILM, is not only a long overdue redressing of the balance, it is in itself an inspiring and revisionist history of cinema, which puts women directors right back where they belong – at the epicentre of the story of film. And yet it is far more than that: it’s an alternative film school which, through the prism of the female gaze, teaches us the themes and techniques of cinema, but using anly women filmmakers as examples. EFA is proud to present the EFA Award for Innovative Storytelling to the director of WOMEN MAKE FILM – Mark Cousins.”
With this award, the European Film Academy wishes to pay tribute to a ground-breaking documentary produced by Hopscotch Films, a 14-hour odyssey introducing the viewer to many amazing but often overlooked female auteurs of cinema.
Using almost a thousand film extracts from thirteen decades and six continents, Mark cousins asks how films are made, shot and edited; how stories are shaped and how movies depict life, love, politics, humour and death, all through the compelling lens of some of the world’s greatest directors — all of them women.
