Anato­my of a Fall sweeps the 2023 Euro­pean Film Awards

It was a busy night for Jus­tine Triet’s Palme d’Or win­ner Anato­my of a Fall at the Euro­pean Film Awards, which returned to Berlin for its 2023 cer­e­mo­ny. While snubbed by the French selec­tion com­mit­tee for the Best Inter­na­tion­al Fea­ture Oscar in favour of Trần Anh Hùng’s The Taste of Things, Anato­my of a Fall res­onat­ed more with the rest of the con­ti­nent, and Tri­et has some nice new tro­phies for her cabinet.

The film picked up Best Direc­tor for Jus­tine Tri­et, Best Actress for San­dra Hüller (who was also nom­i­nat­ed in the same cat­e­go­ry for The Zone of Inter­est) Best Screen­play for Tri­et and her part­ner and co-writer Arthur Harari, Best Edit­ing for Lau­rene Sénéchal, and the big award of the night, Best Film, pre­sent­ed to the team by Stel­lan Skars­gård and Ari­ane Labed.

A sin­gle film dom­i­nat­ing the EFAs does tend to be the norm – last year the big­ger win­ner was Tri­an­gle of Sad­ness, and in 2020 it was Anoth­er Round.

Speak­ing of Anoth­er Round – Mads Mikkelsen beat out Josh O’Connor, Thomas Schu­bert, Jus­si Vata­nen and Chris­t­ian Friedel to win Best Actor for his per­for­mance as Cap­tain Lud­vig Kahlen in Niko­laj Arcel’s his­tor­i­cal dra­ma The Promised Land. This is his sec­ond EFA win, and his fifth nom­i­na­tion, mak­ing him the most nom­i­nat­ed actor in the award’s history.

Mean­while, Anna Hints’ Smoke Sauna Sis­ter­hood took home Best Doc­u­men­tary, and the Euro­pean Dis­cov­ery Award – vot­ed for by FIPRESCI – went to Mol­ly Man­ning Walk­er for How to Have Sex. Pablo Burger’s silent ani­mat­ed film Robot Dreams won Best Ani­mat­ed Feature.

The EFA’s annu­al spe­cial prizes were award­ed to an eclec­tic group, with Cata­lan film­mak­er Isabel Coix­et receiv­ing the Euro­pean Achieve­ment in World Cin­e­ma award, and Béla Tarr hon­oured by the EFA Pres­i­dent and Board. Euro­pean Film Acad­e­my pres­i­dent Agniesz­ka Hol­land also pre­sent­ed Vanes­sa Red­grave with a Life­time Achieve­ment award. While Red­grave couldn’t be in Berlin, she was pre­sent­ed with the award by her daugh­ter Joe­ly Richard­son at her home in a touch­ing video mes­sage. ​“You seem to chan­nel the ele­ments almost like a seer,” Richard­son said of her mother’s phe­nom­e­nal act­ing talent.

The Promised Land and JA Bayona’s Soci­ety of the Snow also picked up two craft awards apiece, with cin­e­matog­ra­ph­er Ras­mus Vide­bæk and cos­tume design­er Kic­ki Ilan­der recog­nised for the for­mer, and Ana Lōpez-Puigcerv­er, Belēn Lōpez-Puigcerv­er, David Martí and Montse Ribé (make-up and hair) and Félix Bergés and Lau­ra Pedro (visu­al effects) for the latter.

Join­ing the craft win­ners were Markus Binder for his Club Zero score, John­nie Burn and Tarn Willers for their sound design work on The Zone Of Inter­est, and pro­duc­tion design­er Emi­ta Friga­to for Alice Rohrwacher’s sub­lime La Chimera.

Best Euro­pean Short went to the Aus­tri­an film Hard­ly Work­ing, which has a nov­el con­cept: shot entire­ly with­in Rockstar’s Red Dead Redemp­tion II, the film fol­lows a raft of NPCs with­in the game to ques­tion the role and ethics of work in the dig­i­tal age.

In a nov­el move, three mem­bers of the Euro­pean Film Club – an ini­tia­tive aimed at engag­ing young peo­ple with Euro­pean cin­e­ma – pre­sent­ed the Euro­pean Young Audi­ence Award to Char­lotte Regan’s Scrap­per, which was vot­ed for by the teenage mem­bers of the Euro­pean Film Club. Regan gave a sweet accep­tance speech live via Zoom – and called up Mol­ly Man­ning Walk­er, who was in the audi­ence for How to Have Sex and served as DoP on Scrap­per, to come up and col­lect the award for her.

There were sev­er­al oblique ref­er­ences to the cur­rent con­flicts in Gaza and Ukraine dur­ing the cer­e­mo­ny, which was host­ed by Ger­man actress Brit­ta Stef­fen­hagen. Maria Schrad­er elect­ed to read out Israeli poet Yehu­da Amichai’s ​‘The Place Where We Are Right’ before pre­sent­ing Jus­tine Tri­et with her Best Direc­tor award.