Michael Haneke’s The White Ribbon (Das Weisse Band) was the big winner at this year’s European Film Awards, taking awards for European film, director and screenwriter of the year.

The ceremony was held at the weekend in Bochum’s impressive Jahrhunderthalle as a prologue to the year-long European Capital of Culture Ruhr.2010 celebrations.

Accepting his third award of the evening with his producers Stefan Arndt, Veit Heiduschka, and Andrea Occhipinti on the stage, Haneke said that he was “completely bowled over” by the recognition and apologised in terrospect for the seemingly unfriendly impression he made when he also won three prizes at the awards ceremony in Berlin in 2005 for Cache. “Perhaps it is difficult for me to show my joy,” Haneke suggested.

Other popular winners of the evening were Jacques Audiard’s A Prophet (Une Prophete), which picked up European Actor 2009 for Tahar Rahim and European Film Academy Prox Excellence 2009 for sound design, and Danny Boyle’s Slumdog Millionaire, which shared the Carlo di Palma European Cinematographer Award for Anthony Dod Mantle with Lars von Trier’s Antichrist and was voted by cinema-goers around Europe for the People’s Choice Award as Best European Film.

The audience of 1,400 gave standing ovations for two masters of European cinema - Polish filmmaker Andrzej Wajda and Ken Loach -and for French actress Isabelle Huppert, the recipient of this year’s award for European Achievement in World Cinema.

On accepting the European Film Academy Lifetime Achievement Award from the hands of football player-turned-actor Eric Cantona, Loach called on Europe’s politicians to introduce policies to protect European films and promote their circulation since “large areas of Europe” would not be able to see the films being nominated and honoured at the awards ceremony. He also reminded the gala’s audience to respect freedom of expression and “give solidarity to people who don’t have such freedom in other countries.”

The evening before the awards ceremony, Loach had been honoured with a gala screening of his last film Looking For Ericin the Lichtburg cinema in Essen and possibly ruffled some feathers by lambasting the cynicism of politicians and quoting Lenin in the presence of North Rhine-Westphalia’s Minister for Federal Affairs, Europe and Media Andreas Krautscheid from the conservative CDU party.

There were visibly fewer Film Academy members and a much larger German - and particularly North Rhine-Westphalian presence at this year’s Awards. Either that economic downturn has having an effect or the prospect of spending a weekend in Essen was not so appealinh.

The 2010 venue in Tallinn, however, at the end of the Black Nights Film Festival (PÖFF), on December 4, 2010, should attract more members from around Europe since the organisers will have a better infrastructure available, starting with a wide range of high quality hotels and the sightseeing attractions of the Estonian capital’s old town centre..

Complete list of winners of the 22nd European Film Awards

EUROPEAN FILM 2009
Das Weisse Band (The White Ribbon), Germany/Austria/France/Italy, written and directed by Michael Haneke, produced by Stefan Arndt, Veit Heiduschka, Michael Katz, Margaret Menegoz & Andrea Occhipinti

EUROPEAN DIRECTOR 2009
Michael Haneke for Das Weisse Band (The White Ribbon)

EUROPEAN ACTOR 2009
Tahar Rahim in Un Prophete (A Prophet)

EUROPEAN ACTRESS 2009
Kate Winslet in The Reader

EUROPEAN SCREENWRITER 2009
Michael Haneke for Das Weisse Band (The White Ribbon)

CARLO DI PALMA EUROPEAN CINEMATOGRAPHER AWARD 2009
Anthony Dod Mantle for Antichrist & Slumdog Millionaire

EUROPEAN FILM ACADEMY PRIX D’EXCELLENCE 2009
Brigitte Taillandier, Francis Wargnier, Jean-Paul Hurier & Marc Doisne for the Sound Design, Un Prophete (A Prophet)

EUROPEAN COMPOSER 2009
Alberto Iglesias for Los Abrazos Rotos (Broken Embraces)

EUROPEAN DISCOVERY 2009
Katalin Varga, Romania/UK/Hungar, written & directed by Peter Strickland, produced by Tudor Giurgiu, Oana Giurgiu & Peter Strickland

EUROPEAN FILM ACADEMY ANIMATED FEATURE FILM 2009
Mia et le Migou (Mia and the Migoo), France/Italy, directed by Jacques-Rémy Girerd, co-directed by Nora Twomey

EUROPEAN FILM ACADEMY SHORT FILM 2009
Poste Restante by Marcel Losinski

EUROPEAN FILM ACADEMY LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD
Ken Loach

EUROPEAN ACHIEVEMENT IN WORLD CINEMA
Isabelle Huppert

EUROPEAN FILM ACADEMY DOCUMENTARY 2009 - Prix ARTE
THE SOUND OF INSECTS - Record of a Mummy, Switzerland
by Peter Liechti

EUROPEAN CO-PRODUCTION AWARD - Prix EURIMAGES
Diana Elbaum and Jani Thiltges

EUROPEAN FILM ACADEMY CRITICS AWARD 2009 - Prix FIPRESCI
Andrzej Wajda for Tatarak (Sweet Rush)

PEOPLE’S CHOICE AWARD for Best European Film
Slumdog Millionaire, UK, directed by Danny Boyle, written by Simon Beaufoy, produced by Christian Colson

Topics