- European Film Awards 2009: Michael Haneke’s political-psychological mystery drama The White Ribbon became only the third title to win Best Film, Best Director, and Best Screenplay. This year’s other winners and honorees include Tahar Rahim, Kate Winslet, and veteran Isabelle Huppert.
European Film Awards 2009: In rare feat, Michael Haneke’s The White Ribbon wins Best Film, Best Director, and Best Screenplay
Michael Haneke’s The White Ribbon was the big winner at the 2009 European Film Awards, held on Dec. 12 at the Jahrhunderthalle (Hall of the Century) in the city of Bochum, located in Germany’s Rhein-Ruhr region.
A stark black-and-white drama about mysterious and violent occurrences taking place in a small German town shortly before the outbreak of World War I, The White Ribbon won Best European Film, Best European Director, and Best European Screenplay (also Haneke) – an unusual occurrence, as European Film Academy members tend to spread their trophies around.
For instance, four years ago Haneke’s political-psychological drama Caché / Hidden won Best Film and Best Director, but the Best Screenwriter award went to Hany Abu-Assad and Bero Beyer for Abu-Assad’s Palestinian-set political drama Paradise Now.
In fact, Pedro Almodóvar’s 2002 psychological drama Talk to Her and Matteo Garrone’s 2008 mafia thriller Gomorrah are the only other titles to have topped those three categories since the first European Film Awards back in 1988.*
Of note, this year three titles earned Best Film, Best Director, and Best Screenplay nods: The White Ribbon, A Prophet, and Slumdog Millionaire.
Also: Four of the directors of the six Best Film nominees were individually shortlisted, whereas Stephen Daldry (The Reader) and Tomas Alfredson (Let the Right One In) were replaced by Pedro Almodóvar (Broken Embraces) and Lars von Trier (Antichrist).
* A bit of context: Throughout most of the 1990s the European Film Awards were a downsized version of their earlier (1988–1990) and later (21st-century) selves. The Best Director category, for one, was gone from 1990 (though other categories were kept in place that year) to 2000.
The White Ribbon’s Oscar chances
Germany’s submission for the 2010 Best Foreign Language Film Academy Award, The White Ribbon had previously won the Palme d’Or at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival (where A Prophet won the [runner-up] Grand Prix).
Considering that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ Best Picture list has been stretched to include 10 nominees, The White Ribbon, which opens later this month in Los Angeles, may well find itself a slot – in addition to possible Best Director and Best Original Screenplay nods.
That is, unless the European Film Awards’ 21st-century Oscar Curse strikes again.
‘Oscar Curse’
Since the year 2000, only four Best European Film winners have gone on to receive Academy Award nominations in any category:
- Lars von Trier’s Dancer in the Dark (2000): Nominated for Best Original Song.
- Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s Amélie (2001): Nominated in five categories, including Best Foreign Language Film and Best Original Screenplay.
- Pedro Almodóvar’s Talk to Her (2002): Won Best Original Screenplay; nominated for Best Director.
- Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck’s The Lives of Others (2006): Won Best Foreign Language Film.
During that same period, internationally acclaimed Best European Film winners like Caché; Gomorrah; Fatih Akin’s culture clash drama Head-On (2004); and Cristian Mungiu’s abortion drama 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days (2007) were completely ignored by the Beverly Hills-based Academy.
It remains to be seen whether the downbeat The White Ribbon will be any luckier than its recent predecessors.
Update: The White Ribbon ended up getting shortlisted in two Oscar categories, Best Foreign Language Film and Best Cinematography. The winners were, respectively, The Secret in Their Eyes and Avatar (Mauro Fiore).
So, in this instance it was more of an Oscar demi-curse. Two nominations, but no wins and no Best Director or Best Original Screenplay nods.
Bypassed eligible titles
Lest we forget, among the eligible features not found on the 2009 European Film Awards’ roster for Best European Film (six nominees), Best European Director (six nominees), or Best European Screenwriter (four nominees) were:
- Anne Fontaine’s Coco Before Chanel
- Yorgos Lanthimos’ Dogtooth
- Jan Troell’s Everlasting Moments
- Maren Ade’s Everyone Else
- Niels Arden Oplev’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
- Christian Petzold’s Jerichow
- Ken Loach’s Looking for Eric
- Martin Provost’s Séraphine
- Andrzej Wajda’s Sweet Rush
- Marco Bellocchio’s Vincere
- Philippe Lioret’s Welcome
Best European Actor Tahar Rahim
With only a couple of minor film roles to his credit, Tahar Rahim (The 9/11 Commission Report, Inside) was the 2009 European Film Awards’ Best Actor for his performance as a small-time hoodlum who attempts to carve a safe space for himself while behind bars in Jacques Audiard’s A Prophet.
Out of its six nominations – the most of any movie this year – The Prophet also won the European Film Academy’s Prix d’Excellence (covering an amalgam of technical and artistic achievements) for its sound design (Brigitte Taillandier, Francis Wargnier, Jean-Paul Hurier, Marc Doisne).
Absentee Best European Actress Kate Winslet
Unlike Tahar Rahim, Best Actress winner Kate Winslet was nowhere to be found at Bochum’s Jahrhunderthalle. Winslet (not Charlotte Gainsbourg for Antichrist, as we had expected) was named Best European Actress for her portrayal of an illiterate former Nazi guard who has an affair with a teenager half her age (Best Actor nominee David Kross) in The Reader – a 2008 release that had already earned her an Oscar, a British Academy Award, a SAG Award (as Best Supporting Actress), and a Golden Globe.
Early this year, Winslet attended all four cross-Atlantic ceremonies. But we’re now a couple of weeks away from 2010. The Reader’s awards season timeliness is long gone.
In point of fact, Kate Winslet’s absence was a replay of the 2007 European Film Awards, when another Oscar, British Academy Award, SAG Award, and Golden Globe-winning English actress, Helen Mirren, failed to pick up in person her Best European Actress trophy for The Queen.
And this perfectly avoidable reduction in star wattage – and consequent reduction in worldwide publicity for the awards and for the nominated/winning films themselves – is one good reason why the European Film Academy should change their eligibility schedule.
Note: Since the early 1990s, the European Film Awards have myopically lacked Best Supporting Actor/Actress categories. As a result, performers in non-leading roles have little to no chance of getting their work recognized.
Bypassed eligible on-screen talent
Of note, among the eligible performers who failed to be shortlisted for the 2009 European Film Awards were:
- Michael Fassbender, Fish Tank
- Martina Gedeck, The Baader Meinhof Complex
- Maria Heiskanen, Everlasting Moments
- Nina Hoss, Jerichow
- Giovanna Mezzogiorno, Vincere
- Audrey Tautou, Coco Before Chanel
- Ulrich Tukur, The White Ribbon
More 2009 European Film Award winners
Now, even though multiple Oscar and BAFTA winner Slumdog Millionaire is by now old news, director Danny Boyle was in attendance at the Jahrhunderthalle to pick up the People’s Choice Award for Best Film.
That and Anthony Dod Mantle’s Best Cinematography win – also for his work on Lars von Trier’s Antichrist – were the only two statuettes handed to the global sleeper hit.
Which goes to show what a difference 10 months make.
Among the other winners at the European Film Awards 2009 were the following:
- Best European Composer: Alberto Iglesias for the moody neo-noir Broken Embraces.
- Best Documentary: Peter Liechti’s The Sound of Insects – Record of a Mummy, about the discovery of the mummified remains of a man who had starved himself to death while recording the process along the way.
- Best Animated Feature: Jacques-Rémy Girerd’s Mia and the Migoo, about a young girl who, while searching for her father in a tropical forest, becomes acquainted with an unusual giant creature known as the Migoo.
- Best First Feature: British filmmaker Peter Strickland’s Katalin Varga, about a woman (Hilda Péter) on a quest for revenge in the rural, Hungarian-speaking area of Romania’s Carpathian region.
- Best Short Film: Marcel Lozinski’s nonfiction Poste restante follows one of the letters – addressee not found – that end up at the post office in the central Polish town of Koluszki. (The addressee is “God.”)
Lifetime Achievement Award recipient Ken Loach
The recipient of the European Film Academy’s 2009 Lifetime Achievement Award, veteran British filmmaker Ken Loach (Kes, The Wind That Shakes the Barley) didn’t have anything to say about the Academy’s eligibility schedule, but during his acceptance speech he did affirm that Europeans need to learn a few lessons from the Americans.
No, not how to make movies or produce awards ceremonies. “The U.S. government supports its steel and agricultural industries,” Loach remarked. “Why can’t our politicians protect European film?”
An aside: According to filmmaker Tomm Moore, whose The Secret of Kells was in the running for Best Animated Feature, at a Looking for Eric screening held the night before the European Film Awards ceremony, Loach asked those in the audience to “make some noise about Western Sahara and the plight of one their leading human rights activists who is currently on hunger strike in Lanzarote airport.” (That’s Aminatou Haidar; you can read more about the issue in The Guardian.)
Fearless Isabelle Huppert
Appropriately introduced by veteran filmmaker Volker Schlöndorff (Young Törless, The Tin Drum) as “a woman who isn’t afraid of anything,” European Achievement in World Cinema recipient Isabelle Huppert began her speech in English and then switched to French, stating that cinema, “a voyage that is both internal and external,” should be the “European language.”
Huppert has two previous Best European Actress wins: For Michael Haneke’s The Piano Teacher (2001) and, as part of an eight-actress ensemble, for François Ozon’s 8 Women (2002).
Prix FIPRESCI recipient Andrzej Wajda
Handed out by the International Federation of Film Critics (FIPRESCI) in association with the European Film Academy, the 2009 Prix FIPRESCI went to 83-year-old veteran Andrzej Wajda (Generation, Kanal, Ashes and Diamonds) for the Polish psychological documentary-drama mix Sweet Rush, co-winner (with Adrián Biniez’s Giant) of the Alfred Bauer Award at the 2009 Berlin Film Festival.
Based on a short story by Hungarian writer/journalist Sándor Márai (1900–1989), Sweet Rush stars veteran actress Krystyna Janda (Wajda’s Man of Marble and Man of Iron) as a neglected wife and grieving mother – her sons were killed during World War II – who, unaware that she is terminally ill, begins a passionate romance with a handsome youth (shades of The Door in the Floor) played by Polish-American actor Pawel Szajda.
In other segments, Sweet Rush features Janda as herself explaining how she dealt with the death of her husband, cinematographer Edward Klosinski (Wajda’s The Maids of Wilko, Three Colors: White), in early 2008.
European Film Academy Ambassadors
Lastly, the European Film Academy has enlisted a group of Ambassadors of European Film to cooperate in the promotion of both the European Film Awards and European cinema in general. They are:
- German actor Moritz Bleibtreu (Run Lola Run, The Baader Meinhof Complex)
- British filmmaker Stephen Daldry (Billy Elliot, The Reader)
- Portuguese actress-filmmaker Maria de Medeiros (Pulp Fiction, April Captains)
- Danish actor Mads Mikkelsen (After the Wedding, Casino Royale)
- Romanian filmmaker Cristian Mungiu (Occident; 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days)
- Spanish actress Belén Rueda (The Sea Inside, The Orphanage)
- Italian actor Kim Rossi Stuart (The Keys to the House, Crime Novel)
- Polish actor Maciej Stuhr (The Wedding, 33 Scenes from Life)
- Bosnian filmmaker Danis Tanovic (No Man’s Land, L’Enfer)
- Dutch actress Johanna ter Steege (The Vanishing, Guernsey)
Of course, there’s nothing wrong with ambassadors in and of themselves. But if the European Film Academy’s powers-that-be are serious about expanding the international appeal of the European Film Awards – and of European cinema itself – then they will drastically change their awards’ schedule and eligibility rules.
Bad timing: An awards season obsession
As per current European Film Academy rules, in order to be eligible for the European Film Awards a motion picture must have had its “first official screening” after July 1 of the previous year; June 15 was the submission deadline in 2009. (For the Oscars, a movie can be released in the Los Angeles area on Dec. 31 and find itself in the shortlist five or six weeks later.)
Hence, three of this year’s Best European Film nominees – Let the Right One In (Guldbagge Awards), The Reader, and Slumdog Millionaire – had already had their national and/or international awards season runs, and so had three other titles shortlisted in the acting and screenwriting categories: The Baader Meinhof Complex (German Film Awards), Mid-August Lunch (David di Donatello Awards), and Séraphine (César Awards).
Having so many “old” movies included on the European Film Awards’ roster makes the awards themselves look outdated. Even if a popular hit like Slumdog Millionaire were to take home a bevy of trophies, that would feel anticlimactic as its “awards season momentum” dissipated shortly after the Oscar ceremony eight months ago.
In that regard, “Europeans” could learn a lesson from the Golden Globes and the BAFTAs, whose international clout is directly related to their carefully timed “Oscar worthiness.” You may not like it, but that’s the reality.
Besides, it wouldn’t hurt if non-European talent working in European productions were also eligible for the European Film Awards. Imagine if the Hollywood Academy had a longstanding rule stipulating that only Americans working in U.S.-made productions could qualify for its awards. Had that been the case, half (or more) of the nominees and winners of the past 81 years – most of them European-born, from Emil Jannings and Greta Garbo to Kate Winslet and Danny Boyle – would have been deemed ineligible.
Cultural doors, after all, should be kept open.
Ceremony host, presenters, and guests
German comedy performer Anke Engelke hosted the 2009 European Film Awards.
Among the scheduled presenters and guests were:
- Actresses Victoria Abril, Hannelore Elsner, Krystyna Janda, Julia Jentsch, Caterina Murino, Johanna ter Steege, and María Valverde.
- Actors Detlev Buck, Jesper Christensen, Ben Kingsley, Maciej Stuhr, and Anatole Taubman.
- Actors-directors Branko Djuric and Aksel Hennie.
- Filmmakers Roland Emmerich and Sönke Wortmann.
- Documentarian Nino Kirtadzé.
Immediately below is the list of the 2009 European Film Awards’ winners and nominees.
European Film Awards 2009: Winners & nominations
BEST EUROPEAN FILM
Fish Tank (U.K.) – Kees Kasander & Nick Laws
Let the Right One In / Låt den Rätte Komma In (Sweden) – John Nordling & Carl Molinder
A Prophet / Un Prophète (France) – Lauranne Bourrachot, Martine Cassinelli, Pascal Caucheteux & Marco Cherqui
The Reader (Germany | U.S. | U.K.) – Anthony Minghella, Sydney Pollack, Donna Gigliotti & Redmond Morris
Slumdog Millionaire (United Kingdom | India | U.S.) – Christian Colson
* The White Ribbon / Das weiße Band (Germany | Austria | France | Italy) – Stefan Arndt, Veit Heiduschka, Margaret Ménégoz & Andrea OcchipintiBEST EUROPEAN DIRECTOR
Pedro Almodóvar – Broken Embraces / Los abrazos rotos
Andrea Arnold – Fish Tank
Jacques Audiard – A Prophet
Danny Boyle – Slumdog Millionaire
* Michael Haneke – The White Ribbon
Lars von Trier – AntichristBEST EUROPEAN ACTRESS
Penélope Cruz – Broken Embraces
Charlotte Gainsbourg – Antichrist
Katie Jarvis – Fish Tank
Yolande Moreau – Séraphine
Noomi Rapace – The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo / Män som Hatar Kvinnor
* Kate Winslet – The ReaderBEST EUROPEAN ACTOR
Moritz Bleibtreu – The Baader Meinhof Complex / Der Baader Meinhof Komplex
Steve Evets – Looking for Eric
David Kross – The Reader
Dev Patel – Slumdog Millionaire
* Tahar Rahim – A Prophet
Filippo Timi – VincereBEST EUROPEAN SCREENWRITER
Mid-August Lunch / Pranzo di ferragosto – Gianni di Gregorio
A Prophet – Jacques Audiard & Thomas Bidegain
Slumdog Millionaire – Simon Beaufoy
* The White Ribbon – Michael HanekeCARLO DI PALMA EUROPEAN CINEMATOGRAPHER AWARD
* Antichrist & Slumdog Millionaire – Anthony Dod Mantle
Paper Soldier / Bumazhny Soldat – Maxim Drozdov & Alisher Khamidkhodzhaev
A Prophet – Stéphane Fontaine
The White Ribbon – Christian BergerBEST EUROPEAN COMPOSER
* Broken Embraces – Alberto Iglesias
Coco Before Chanel / Coco avant Chanel – Alexandre Desplat
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo – Jakob Groth
Let the Right One In – Johan SöderqvistEUROPEAN FILM ACADEMY PRIX D’EXCELLENCE
The Baader Meinhof Complex – Waldemar Pokromski (Make Up and Hair)
Coco Before Chanel – Catherine Leterrier (Costume Design)
* A Prophet – Brigitte Taillandier, Francis Wargnier, Jean-Paul Hurier & Marc Doisne (Sound Design)
Vincere – Francesca Calvelli (Editing)BEST FIRST FEATURE – EUROPEAN DISCOVERY AWARD
Ajami (Germany | Israel) – Dir.: Scandar Copti & Yaron Shani
Autumn / Sonbahar (Turkey | Germany) – Dir.: Özcan Alper
Be Good / Sois sage (France | Denmark) – Dir.: Juliette Garcias
* Katalin Varga (Romania | United Kingdom | Hungary) – Dir.: Peter Strickland
The Other Bank / Gagma Napiri (Georgia | Kazakhstan) – Dir.: George OvashviliBEST EUROPEAN ANIMATED FEATURE
The Flight Before Christmas / Niko & the Way to the Stars / Niko – Lentäjän poika (Finland | Germany | Denmark | Ireland) – Dir.: Kari Juusonen & Michael Hegner
* Mia and the Migoo / Mia et le Migou (France) – Dir.: Jacques-Rémy Girerd
The Secret of Kells (France | Belgium | Ireland) – Dir.: Tomm MooreBEST EUROPEAN DOCUMENTARY – PRIX ARTE
The Beaches of Agnes / Les Plages d’Agnès (France) – Dir.: Agnès Varda
Below Sea Level (Italy | U.S.) – Dir.: Gianfranco Rosi
Burma VJ (Denmark) – Dir.: Anders Østergaard
Cooking History / Ako sa varia dejiny (Slovakia | Austria | Czech Republic) – Dir.: Peter Kereke
The Damned of the Sea / Les Damnés de la mer (Belgium) – Dir.: Jawad Rhalib
Defamation (Denmark | Austria | Israel | U.S.) – Dir.: Yoav Shamir
The Heart of Jenin / Das Herz von Jenin (Germany) – Dir.: Leon Geller & Marcus Vetter
Pianomania (Germany | Austria) – Dir.: Lilian Franck & Robert Cibis
* The Sound of Insects – Record of a Mummy / Das Summen der Insekten – Bericht einer Mumie (Switzerland) – Dir.: Peter Liechti
The Woman with the 5 Elephants / Die Frau mit den 5 Elefanten (Switzerland | Germany) – Dir.: Vadim JendreykoBEST EUROPEAN SHORT FILM
Between Dreams (France | Russia | Finland) – Dir.: Iris Olsson
14 (U.K.) – Dir.: Asitha Ameresekere
The Glass Trap / Szklana pulapka (Poland) – Dir.: Pawel Ferdek
Good Night / Bonne nuit (Belgium | France) – Dir.: Valéry Rosier
The Herd (Ireland) – Dir.: Ken Wardrop
Peter in Radioland (U.K.) – Dir.: Johanna Wagner
* Poste restante (Poland) – Dir.: Marcel Lozinski
Renovare (Germany | Romania) – Dir.: Paul Negoescu
Sinner (Israel) – Dir.: Meni Philip
The Suffering of Mr. Karpf. – The Birthday / Die Leiden Des Herrn Karpf. – Der Geburtstag (Germany) – Dir.: Lola Randl
Swimming Lesson / Zwemles (Belgium) – Dir.: Danny de Vent
Tile M For Murder / Lägg M För Mord (Sweden) – Dir.: Magnus Holmgren
What’s Left / Was Bleibt (Germany) – Dir.: David NawrathEUROPEAN ACHIEVEMENT IN WORLD CINEMA
Isabelle HuppertEUROPEAN FILM ACADEMY LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD
Ken LoachPRIX EURIMAGES (“acknowledging the decisive role of co-productions in the European film industry”)
Diana Elbaum, head of Entre Chien et Loup (Belgium)
Jani Thiltges, head of Samsa Film (Luxembourg)CRITICS’ AWARD – Prix FIPRESCI
Sweet Rush / TatarakPEOPLE’S CHOICE AWARD FOR BEST EUROPEAN FILM
The Baader Meinhof Complex
Broken Embraces
Coco Before Chanel
The Duchess
Fly Me to the Moon
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Let the Right One In
Mid-August Lunch
* Slumdog Millionaire
Transporter 3
“European Film Awards 2009: Rare Triple Win” notes
European Film Academy committees
The nominees for Best First Feature were determined by a committee comprising European Film Academy Board Members Pawel Pawlikowski (U.K.), Els Vandevorst (the Netherlands), and Pierre-Henri Deleau (France); in addition to CPH PIX Film Festival Director Jacob Neiiendam (Denmark); and FIPRESCI members Dana Linssen (the Netherlands) and Alin Taciyan (Turkey).
The nominees for Best Animated Feature were determined by a committee comprising Board Members Per Holst (producer, Denmark) and Antonio Saura (producer, Spain), in addition to CARTOON (the European Association of Animation Film) representatives Agnès Bizzaro (program consultant/editor, France | Germany), Enzo d’Alo (director, Italy), and Joanna Quinn (director, U.K.).
The Best Documentary winner was selected – “for its skillful exploration of minimalistic means to create an extraordinary visual story between life and death” – by a three-member panel: Nino Kirtadzé (documentary filmmaker, France | Georgia), Franz Grabner (producer/editor, Austria), and Viktor Kossakovsky (documentary filmmaker, Russia).
European Film Awards (EFA) website.
Michael Haneke, Tahar Rahim, and Isabelle Huppert European Film Awards 2009 images: © Guido Ohlenbostel | European Film Academy.
“European Film Awards 2009: Rare Triple Win” last modified in March 2026.