european film awards Tagged Articles at Cinematical

The Italian films Il Divo and Gomorra hogged the spotlight at Saturday's announcement of the European Film Award nominations, with five nods apiece, including best picture. "But wait," you might be saying if you're not European. "Why do the European Film Awards matter to me? I'm not European!"

They matter because you love foreign films, that's why. OK, and also because the EFAs often presage the Academy Awards. Recent EFA best picture winners have included such Oscar-scented titles as The Lives of Others, Talk to Her, Amelie, and Dancer in the Dark. Gomorra -- which is apparently about skinny underwear models who shoot guns at the beach -- has been submitted as Italy's Oscar hopeful and now seems like a surefire nominee, thanks to its EFA attention. The other EFA best picture nominees are The Class (France's Oscar submission), Waltz with Bashir (Israel's submission), Happy-Go-Lucky (whose star, Sally Hawkins, has generated Oscar buzz), and The Orphanage (which was eligible for Oscar consideration last year).

In the director category, the EFA nominees are Laurent Cantet (The Class), Andreas Dresen (Cloud 9), Ari Folman (Waltz with Bashir), Matteo Garrone (Gomorra), Steve McQueen (Hunger), and Paolo Sorrentino (Il Divo). Also of note: Toni Servillo is named in the best actor category for two performances -- Il Divo and Gomorra. You'd think those were the only two films Italy made this year.

Most of the EFA-nominated films either have U.S. distribution lined up or are already playing here. Success at the awards, to be handed out in Copenhagen on Dec. 8, will increase their visibility in American theaters and may also help their chances at the Oscars. The complete list of nominations is here.

It's been eight months since Helen Mirren won an Oscar for her title performance in The Queen, yet people are still clamoring to give her and the film more awards. (As Cinematical's Christopher Campbell told us last week, they're even giving prizes to the movie's dogs.) Now The Queen has been nominated for six European Film Awards, including best picture, actress, director, screenwriter, composer, and editor.

How can that be, when it's a 2006 release? Because unlike the Oscars, which go by the calendar year, the European Film Awards run from July-June. So anything released in Europe after July 1, 2006 is eligible. That means that in the EFA actress category, last year's Oscar winner Helen Mirren is up against Marion Cotillard (for La Vie en Rose) -- who may very well be nominated for an Oscar this year. Kooky!

After The Queen, the next top-nominated film is another contender from last year's Oscars, The Last King of Scotland. It got five EFA nods, for picture, director, actor (James McAvoy), cinematographer, and composer.

Note that for all the awards, the nominees must be European by birth, or else have a European passport. This means, for example, that the American star of Last King of Scotland, Forest Whitaker, was ineligible, even though others in the film -- and the film itself -- qualified. The films themselves must be "European" in the sense that most of the key participants -- director, writer, leading actors, etc. -- must be from Europe. For the EFA's purposes, Israel and Palestine are considered part of Europe (even though they're, um, not.)

Three other films earned three nominations each, including best picture: La Vie en Rose, The Edge of Heaven, and 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days. The sixth best picture nominee is Persepolis -- its only nod.

As IndieWIRE reports, the nominees were announced Saturday at the Seville Film Festival. The EFA's 1,800 members will vote, and the winners will be revealed Dec. 1 at a ceremony in Berlin. This is the 20th year of the EFA awards.

On Saturday, the European Film Awards will air from Warsaw . Amidst the current cinema hopefuls, the European Film Academy will honor the 73 year-old Roman Polanski with a lifetime achievement award. This will be the second such reward for Polanski, who recently received honors for his career at the Jerusalem Film Festival in July. I assume that this decision was partially based on his being Polish. As I previously reported, this year marks the first time that the awards ceremony will be broadcast from an Eastern European nation, and how better to commemorate the moment than to honor the work of a leading Polish director?

His cinematic successes cannot be ignored. Among his most notable movies are the likes of Rosemary's Baby, Chinatown and The Pianist. Each of these received Oscar nominations, but it wasn't until he portrayed Wladyslaw Szpilman's life, one which was similar to his own, that he actually won. What really makes this European nod interesting, however, is that he hasn't had the same nomination success in Europe . According to imdb's nomination list for the director, he has only won one of the two nods he has been given, and that was for 1999's The Ninth Gate.

Polanski's status as a fugitive has pretty much ensured an inextricable link between his actions and his self, unlike other well-known figures like the convicted drug man Tim Allen, and everyone's favourite alcoholic-turned-Christian president, Dubya. Nevertheless, he's made some significant contributions to the world of cinema. It's hard to argue the value of one's work by their personal life, but should one's personal life be considered when dishing out an award for a lifetime of achievement? Some say yes, and some say no. While I admire a lot of Polanski's work, I can't help but feel a chill when I read Variety's quote by Ronald Harwood: "He once jokingly said to me, 'In order to make a film, I have to get an erection.' But once he knows what he wants, he goes out and gets it."

Now that all the big festivals are wrapping up for the year, it's time to look at who is getting awards. The nominees for the 19th Annual European Film Awards were announced today at the Seville Film Festival. Previously, the awards have been held almost exclusively in Germany, and few other Western European locations including Glasgow and Paris. However this year, for a nice change of pace, the European Film Academy is going in a different direction. For the first time, the ceremony will enter Eastern Europe and air from Warsaw.

This is even more interesting considering one of the leaders in nominees is the wonderful German film by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, The Lives of Others, which chronicles East German Stasi in the 1980's. Perhaps its strong showing was enough to make the academy look to the east. Along with Almodóvar's Volver, the two have dominated the nominations with six nods each. Both are up not only for best film, but also a number of acting and technical awards.

Other films to make the list are Neil Jordan's quirky Breakfast on Pluto, Michael Winterbottom and Mat Whitecross' The Road to Guantanamo, and Ken Loach's The Wind That Shakes the Barley. However, I'm surprised to see a list without any nominations for Andrea Arnold's Red Road; after a Cannes Jury Pricz and number of British Independent Film Award nominations, I thought she was a shoo-in.

If the great films on this list are any indication, this should be an interesting season of awards. What say you?

[Check out the full list of nominees at the European Film Academy's website.]