Birol Ünel, Sibel Kekilli, Head-On
The German drama Gegen die Wand / Head-On was selected as Best European Film at the 2004 European Film Awards ceremony held in Barcelona.
Directed by Fatih Akin, Head-On tells the story of a young Turkish-German woman (Sibel Kekilli) who marries an older Turkish man (Birol Ünel) in order to escape from her strict Muslim family. Earlier this year, Head-On won both the Golden Bear and the International Critics' FIPRESCI prize at the Berlin Film Festival. Additionally, Akin's drama has won five German Film Academy awards: Best Film, Best Actor (Ünel), Best Actress (Kekilli), Best Director, and Best Cinematography (Rainer Klausmann).
Spaniard Javier Bardem was chosen as the year's Best Actor for his performance as a tetraplegic fighting for the right to die in Alejandro Amenábar's Mar adentro / The Sea Inside, which also earned Amenábar the Best Director Award. Vera Drake, Mike Leigh's drama about a part-time abortionist in 1950s England, earned Imelda Staunton the Best Actress Award.
Among the other European Film Award winners were Best Non-European film 2046 (above, with Ziyi Zhang and Tony Leung), Wong Kar Wai's tale about the romantic adventures of a writer; filmmaker Carlos Saura, who took home the Lifetime Achievement Award; and Norwegian actress-director Liv Ullmann, who was given the European Achievement in World Cinema Award — and who also happened to receive the longest standing ovation of the evening.
"It's important that we celebrate what is being done in film over here," said Spanish actress Penélope Cruz, winner of the Jameson People's Choice Best Actress Award for her role as a destitute woman who has an affair with a physician in actor-director-writer Sergio Castellitto's Italian drama Non ti muovere / Don't Move.
The evening's biggest loser was another Spaniard, Pedro Almodóvar, whose outstanding La Mala educación / Bad Education garnered seven nominations but no wins. This unusual dramatic comedy stars Gael García Bernal and Fele Martínez as two men caught between the present and their traumatic past.
The awards were presented by the European Film Academy (EFA), whose current president is German director Wim Wenders. EFA is composed of 1,600 film industry professionals from all over Europe.