Ruben Östlund’s Triangle of Sadness was the big winner at the 2022 European Film Awards (EFAs), winning all four of its nominated categories – European film, director, actor and screenwriter.
When Östlund picked up his first prize of the night, for best director, he thanked his collaborators including his producer and partner in Sweden’s Plattform Produktion, Erik Hemmendorff, and Philippe Bober of Coproduction Office. He also thanked the ensemble of actors in the film and dedicated the prize to the late actress Charlbi Dean, who died suddenly in August at the age of 32.
Ostlund said, “I want to dedicate this prize to Charlbi Dean. Please try to have a look at the film and concentrate on her performance, it’s worth to pay legacy to her performance.”
Backstage at a press Q&A, Ostlund noted that campaigning for an Oscar in the US is “like campaigning for president… it’s about the amount of screenings that you go to or the amount of hands you shake. It’s much more fair with the European Film Awards. We have not started with that crazy campaigning here. I’m happy with this.”
Ostlund is a past EFAs champion – The Square won six prizes at the 2017 awards.
Ostlund’s longtime producer Hemmendorrf said on stage winning best European film, “I love the idea that we have a European film community and it’s been a starting point for a lot of things in this film. I’m really proud we have actors from Sweden, Denmark, France, Austria, South Africa, Greece. It really means something to us, we’re super proud of it.”
The class warfare comedy, set partially on a luxury yacht and a deserted island, is a Sweden-Germany-France-UK co-production.
Producer Philippe Bober added, “It’s not only the casting, it’s also not only the financing that is European. I think what comes to mind if you look at the films that were nominated and won tonight is that Europe is the place where cinema originated and it originated with the filmmakers. All our industry is built around the filmmakers to support and to distribute their work. It might be a little bit different on the other side of the Atlantic… we collectively wanted to be limitless, to go as far as possible with the script, with the directing, but also to embrace the audience. We wanted to have an auteur film for the audience.”
Crowd favourite Zlatko Burić, 69, winning best actor for Triangle Of Sadness, said, “I tried my best for many years and it’s nice to have this now. Wow, I must not stop yet!”
With Triangle winning all its nominated categories, it meant that other four-time nominees like Holy Spider and Close left empty-handed.
A surprised Vicky Krieps accepted her best actress award for Corsage remotely on video, stuck at home with a cold and wearing a dinosaur-print hoodie. She said, “I want to dedicate this to all the women everywhere in the world that need to be seen and heard, that need to free themselves and heal from these deep, deep wounds that we carry for generations, and that we need to heal in order that men and women can come together again.”
Celebrating in Iceland
The EFAs were presented Saturday night (Dec 10) at the Harpa concert hall in Reykjavik. The awards, which alternate years between Berlin and other European cities, were originally slated to run in Reykjavik in 2020 but had to move online that year due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The 2021 awards in Berlin were also online.
Around 1,000 guests joined the festivities in person in Iceland, with a broadcast in 10 countries and a livestream also available online in 24 countries via 36 partners. Presenters included Bulgarian actress Maria Bakalova, Danish actor Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Greenlandic singer and actress Nukâka Coster-Waldau, German actress Nina Hoss, Icelandic director Baltasar Kormákur and Bosnian director Jasmila Žbanić.
The show’s Icelandic elements included a stage set that evoked the northern lights; a sustainable “art carpet” made by local artists; and musical performances by Icelandic Symphonic Orchestra, INNI and GusGus. Local film lovers were featured in interviews recorded at locations including a local swimming pool and Italian ice-cream parlour. And Bjork DJ’d at the after-party.
Elia Sulieman gave a typically funny speech accepting his European Achievement In World Cinema award. The Palestinian filmmaker said the award was “going to expand for more years to come when I don’t have to do anything, when I don’t have to write scripts, I can just put [the trophy] on my desk and enjoy doing nothing. I’m really good at it, I excel. I love staring at nothing, smoke, drink, and pretend that I’m thinking.”
Ukraine and ovations
One poignant moment in the ceremony came when the Eurimages Co-Production Award went to all producers of Ukraine. The audience gave a standing ovation as Pamfir director Dmytro Sukholytkyy-Sobchuk waved a Ukrainian flag that read “Free Maksym Butkevych”.
As one of the Ukrainian producers on stage, Darya Bassel, said, “It’s a great honour to represent all Ukrainian producers here to receive this award during turbulent and tragic times Ukraine is going through. We wouldn’t be standing on this stage, if not for the war Russia started, at least not this year. And we wouldn’t be standing here physically, if it was not for the resistance of our nation – thanks to the courage of our colleagues who put aside their films and have simply gone to the frontline. And if not for the support and solidarity of the international and European film community.”
Fellow producer Julia Sinkevych added, “The greatest film of all time, Dziga Vertov’s Man With A Movie Camera (1929) was made in Ukraine. It is not usually mentioned in film history courses around the world and you will wonder why, this is because its identity was stolen. Just like today. Our national identity and the identity of our culture and cinema is under the threat of being destroyed and stolen. Men with a movie camera begins with these words. This film has been made with the aim of creating an authentic International and universal language of cinema. And this is what all of us are doing today with our work.”
The pair made the plea that the country’s rich heritage is preserved by ensuring that the film museum of the Dovzhenko National Centre in Kyiv is given the legal status as the official film archive of Ukraine.
Producer Mike Downey, chairman of the European Film Academy, said this was “an expression of strong appreciation for the growing quality of Ukrainian production in the past years, and as a sign of ongoing support now that the infrastructure for production support within Ukraine has collapsed. We continue our support to Ukrainian film producers as we did when war broke out and we established an emergency fund for filmmakers via our ICFR (International Coalition for Filmmakers at Risk) affiliation.”
There was another standing ovation when Mantas Kvedaravičius’s daughter collected the best European documentary prize for Mariupolis 2 on behalf of her late filmmaker father, who was killed in the war in April 2022 while making the film. “I was so fortunate to have had someone so brilliant in my life,” she said. “I’m sure he would have been elated to be here.”
The final standing ovation of the night came when Margarethe von Trotta accepted the lifetime achievement award. She noted the Academy was founded 34 years ago and only three female directors had received this prize – “but we’re on the way. I think the time of the woman has just started.”
Von Trotta quoted her hero, Ingmar Bergman, who said at the first European Film Awards, “Let’s never forget the mystery of those 24 frames per second that never betray the magic of our dreams. Long live the cinematographic arts.”
She added, “There’s one thing we will never give up, I hope, that’s the magic of our dreams.”
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