Joachim Trier’s Sentimental Value swept aside its competition at the European Film Awards on Saturday night, seizing all five top prizes at a ceremony in Berlin.
Sentimental Value, which won the Grand Prix at Cannes last year, went home with best film, best director, best screenwriter, best actor for Stellan Skarsgård and best actress for Renate Reinsve, as well as best composer.
The triumph for the Norwegian director is likely to make his meta-drama, about an ageing film-maker (Skarsgård) trying to recruit his estranged daughter (Reinsve) for his final work, a strong contender for an Oscar at the Academy Awards in March.
Cultural diversity is a value that the European Film Academy likes to hold up as its distinguishing feature when compared to the more commercially successful and box office-oriented American film system.
But prizes at the EFA have a tendency to crowd around a single film that dominates the night. After winner-takes-all nights for Justine Triet’s Anatomy of a Fall in 2023 and Jacques Audiard’s Emilia Pérez in 2024, this year was no exception.
The Spanish director Oliver Laxe’s existential road-trip thriller Sirāt also enjoyed a strong night with five prizes, including a sound design award for its brooding and brutal techno score.
The Iranian veteran auteur Jafar Panahi’s It Was Just an Accident and the German newcomer Mascha Schilinski’s Sound of Falling, each nominated in three categories, endured disappointing nights, the former going home empty-handed and the latter taking the prize for best costume.
Panahi had opened the ceremony with a statement on the recent political unrest in his homeland. “If we are disappointed with politicians, we must at least refuse to remain silent,” he said. “Because silence in a time of crime is not neutrality. Silence is a participation in darkness.”
The award for best European documentary went to Igor Bezinović’s Fiume o Morte! In his home town of Rijeka, the Croatian film-maker asked local people to re-enact – and reinterpret – their city’s 16-month occupation at the hands of the dandy proto-fascist Gabriele D’Annunzio in 1919-20.
The Discovery prize for a first-time full-length feature went to the Scotland-based Portuguese director Laura Carreira’s On Falling, set in an Amazon-style retail warehouse.
This year’s ceremony in the German capital was the first to be moved from December to January, in an attempt to establish the awards as a stronger player in its own right, rather than a mere bellwether for the US awards season.
Full list of awards
Film Sentimental Value
Documentary Fiume o Morte!
Animated feature film Arco
Director Joachim Trier for Sentimental Value
Actress Renate Reinsve for Sentimental Value
Actor Stellan Skarsgård for Sentimental Value
Screenwriter Eskil Vogt and Joachim Trier for Sentimental Value
Discovery On Falling
Young audience award Siblings
Casting director Nadia Acimi, Luís Bértolo and María Rodrigo for Sirāt
Cinematographer Mauro Herce for Sirāt
Composer Hania Rani for Sentimental Value
Costume designer Sabrina Krämer for Sound of Falling
Editor Cristóbal Fernández for Sirāt
Makeup and hair artist Torsten Witte for Bugonia
Production designer Laia Ateca for Sirāt
Sound designer Laia Casanovas, Amanda Villavieja and Yasmina Praderas for Sirāt
Short film City of Poets
Eurimages international co-production award Maren Ade, Jonas Dornbach and Janine Jackowski, Komplizen Film
Achievement in world cinema award Alice Rohrwacher
Lifetime achievement award Liv Ullmann