Euro Film Award Winners

While American film critics circles orgs and associations prep their year end "best" reveals, let's hop overseas for a moment. The European Film Awards were held in Berlin, Germany yesterday. It was a very good day to be Danish.

Though Mads Mikkelsen (left) is often seen in American and British films he frequently headlines Danish films too and was honored with a world cinema tribute. Lars von Trier, the maddest prince of Denmark since Hamlet, won the top prize for Melancholia. Though von Trier lost Best Director, he lost it to fellow Dane Susanne Bier who recently also won the Oscar (Best Foreign Language Film, In A Better World.) All three were born within a nine year span in Copenhagen!

FILM Melancholia (Lars von Trier)
DOCUMENTARY Pina (Wim Wenders)
ANIMATED FEATURE Chico & Rita (Tono Erranda, Javier Mariscal & Fernando Trueba)
EUROPEAN ACHIEVEMENT WORLD CINEMA Mads Mikkelsen
LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT Stephen Frears
DIRECTOR Susanne Bier, A Better World
ACTRESS Tilda Swinton, We Need To Talk About Kevin
ACTOR Colin Firth, The King's Speech
SCREENWRITER Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, The Kid With The Bike 
EDITOR Tariq Anwar, The King's Speech
PRODUCTION DESIGNER Jette Lehmann, Melancholia
CINEMATOGRAPHER Manuel Albert Caro, Melancholia
COMPOSER Ludovic Bource, The Artist
PEOPLE'S CHOICE The King's Speech
SHORT FILM AWARD The Wholly Family (Terry Gilliam)
EUROPEAN DISCOVERY  Oxygen (Hans Van Nuffel)

Stars at the EFA Awards from left to right: Sibel Kekilli & Elyas M'Barek, Ludivine Sagnier, Terry Gilliam, (second row) Moritz Bleibtreu, Sam Riley & Alexandra Maria Lara and Maria De Medeiros

Congratulations to the winners!

Another prize for Tilda, eh? If Best Actress weren't so jam-packed this year -- I'll update the two week old charts tomorrow -- I'd be starting to believe that a second Oscar nomination could follow. But whether or not Oscar traction happens, there's definitely a Swintonian Love Wave happening.  Such is the power of momentum. Three consecutive critically lauded star turns in acclaimed challenging films (Julia + I Am Love + We Need To Talk About Kevin) will do that to a girl.