Michael Haneke's The White Ribbon was the big winner at the 2009 European Film Awards, which took place on Sat., Dec. 12, in Bochum, in Germany's Rhein-Ruhr region.
A stark drama about mysterious and violent occurrences that take place in a small German town shortly before the outbreak of World War I, The White Ribbon won trophies for best picture, best director, and best screenplay (also Haneke) — something unusual, as EFA members tend to spread their awards around.
Germany's submission for the 2010 Academy Award for best foreign language film, The White Ribbon has also won the Palme d'Or at this year's Cannes Film Festival.
Considering that the Hollywood Academy's best picture list has been stretched out to include ten nominees, I believe it's quite possible that The White Ribbon, which opens later this month in Los Angeles, will nab a slot in the list. That in addition to potential best director and best screenplay nods — that is, unless the European Film Awards Curse decides to strike again.
In the last seven years, only two best picture European Film Award winners have gone on to receive Academy Award nominations: Pedro Almodóvar's Talk to Her in 2002 and Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck's The Lives of Others in 2006. The former landed nominations in the best director and best original screenplay categories (Almodóvar won for his screenplay); the latter was a surprise winner in the best foreign language film category (beating Guillermo del Toro's much superior and much more popular Pan's Labyrinth).
On the other hand, internationally acclaimed productions such as Matteo Garrone's mafia drama Gomorrah, Cristian Mungiu's abortion drama 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, Fatih Akin's culture-clash drama Head-On, and Michael Haneke's own highly disturbing psychological drama Hidden, one of the very best movies of the first decade of the 21st century, were completely ignored by the Academy. Too good for the Oscars, perhaps.
Possibly the downbeat The White Ribbon will be luckier this year, but with Academy voters (and US critics' groups, for that matter) you never know. Up in the Air, Invictus, and The Princess and the Frog sound like so much more fun!
Photo: European Film Academy