The Palme d'Or-winning "Triangle of Sadness" is among the works vying for the 35th European Film Awards. Here are the European Film Academy's nominations.
Class comedy "Triangle of Sadness" won the Palme d'Or and is set for more honorsImage: Alamode Filmverleih
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Heading the pack for best film at the European Film Awards is Swedish comedy "Triangle of Sadness," which is riding high on the back of its Palme d'Or win at Cannes.
With the satire on the superrich that exposes a tenuous class hierarchy, filmmaker Ruben Ostlund also picked up nominations for best director and best screenwriter, while lead Zlatko Buric is up for best actor.
The nominations for the film awards, the European equivalent of the Oscars, were announced on Tuesday (11.08.2022). The ceremony will take place on December 10 in the Icelandic capital, Reykjavík.
Among the five films competing for the top gong, two other works also premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in May.
"Close," a contemporary drama by Belgian filmmaker Lukas Dhont, explores a "crisis of connection" between two adolescent boys and won the Grand Prix in Cannes.
Meanwhile, the thriller "Holy Spider," by Danish director Ali Abbasi, sees a young female journalist investigate the serial killings of sex workers in Iran's holy city of Mashhad. Based on true events, the Danish, German, Swedish and French co-production won the Prix Un Certain Regard in Cannes, and was chosen as Sweden's Academy Award entry while enjoying a wide international release.
'Holy Spider,' a film about the serial killings of sex workers in Iran, is in the running for best film Image: Alamode Film
Ukraine frontline features up for documentary prize
The Ukraine war understandably features in the shortlist for best documentary, with "A House Made of Splinters" by Danish director Simon Lereng Wilmont, looking at the toll of the conflict on poor families — and especially young orphaned children — living near the frontline in Eastern Ukraine.
The film "Mariupolis 2" explores the brutal Russian occupation of the Black Sea-coast city of Mariupol. The documentary is all-the-more poignant since filmmaker Mantas Kvedaravicius died while shooting material for the film.
Having filmed "Mariupolis" during the ongoing conflict in Eastern Ukraine in 2015, Kvedaravicius was captured and killed by Russian Forces in late March this year in Mariupol while documenting Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
War, peace and democracy: Ukraine in film
Lithuanian filmmaker Mantas Kvedaravicius, whose documentary "Mariupolis" premiered at the 2016 Berlinale, was killed in an attack in the besieged Ukrainian city of Mariupol. DW takes a look at other Ukrainian films.
Image: imago stock&people
Mantas Kvedaravicius, director of 'Mariupolis,' killed in Ukraine
The filmmaker was killed in a Russian attack while trying to leave Mariupol, according to the Ukrainian Defense Ministry. Kvedaravicius is best known for his film "Mariupolis," which premiered at the Berlin International Film Festival in 2016. His conflict-zone documentary about the battle in the Donetsk region port city is one of many films exploring Ukraine's turbulent history.
Image: imago stock&people
'Mr. Jones' by Agnieszka Holland
The 2019 Berlinale competition entry is based on the true story of Welsh journalist Gareth Jones, who traveled to the Soviet Union in 1933 hoping to interview Stalin. Along the way, he witnessed the Holodomor, the devastating famine that killed millions of Ukrainians. Jones' reporting made the world aware of the scale of the disaster, which Soviet authorities were trying to hide.
Image: Robert Palka/Film Produkcja
'Babi Yar. Context' by Sergei Loznitsa
Ukrainian director Sergei Loznitsa's documentary deals with the Nazi occupation of Ukraine during World War II. The film "Babi Yar. Context" (2014) is based on archival footage and reconstructs the events that led to the murder of 33,771 Jews in occupied Kyiv in September 1941.
Image: ATOMS & VOID
'Rhino' by Oleg Senzov
"Rhino" (2021), by Ukrainian director Oleg Senzov, is set in the 1990s and shows how crime and violence spread in Ukraine after the collapse of the Soviet Union. "Quite a few in Ukraine still romanticize this period," he told DW at the time of its release. He hoped his film would "completely de-romanticize" this dark chapter.
Image: Yuriy Grigorovich
'Maidan' by Sergei Loznitsa
In another documentary from 2014, Loznitsa devoted himself to what is known as the "Euromaidan." On Kyiv's Maidan Square between 2013 and 2014, hundreds of thousands of people demonstrated for democracy. What began as a peaceful protest, ended in street fighting. Today, Ukraine remembers the Euromaidan as the "Revolution of Dignity."
Image: ATOMS & VOID
'Bad Roads' by Natalya Vorozhbyt and 'Donbass' by Sergei Loznitsa
Two feature films are dedicated to the Donbas region, where Ukrainian government troops have been fighting pro-Russian separatists since 2014. Natalya Vorozhbyt turned her play "Bad Roads" (2020) into a film that told four stories set on the streets of Donbas. Sergei Loznitsa showed how war became everyday life in his film "Donbass" (2018, photo).
Image: Edition Salzgeber
A new doc by Sean Penn
Sean Penn is currently filming a documentary about the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine, with a release date to be determined. Penn was in Kyiv when the Russians invaded the country in February 2022. In 2021, Penn traveled to the Donbas region and spoke with Ukrainian soldiers there. That's when this photo, released by the Ukrainian Army Press Agency, was taken.
Also vying for top documentary is "March On Rome," a look at the rise of Benito Mussolini's fascist regime in the early 1920s and the implications for 1930s Europe as the far-right tide spread across the continent. The film, which contains extensive archival footage, will have a strong contemporary relevance as neo-fascism rises again in Italy with the election of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, whose Fratelli d'Italia party descends from post-war fascists.
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Global filmmaking greats acknowledged
Legendary German director Margarethe von Trotta — a leader of the New German Cinema known for her depictions of great women figures of history like Hannah Arendt and Rosa Luxemburg — is to be honored with the European Lifetime Achievement award at the ceremony.
Meanwhile, Palestinian filmmaker Elia Suleiman will be awarded the European Achievement in World Cinema award. Among his numerous films unveiling the reality of life in the occupied Palestinian territories, his 2002 work, "Divine Intervention," won the Jury Prize at the 2002 Cannes Film Festival.
This year, the Award for European Innovative Storytelling will go to Italian director Marco Bellocchio for his miniseries, "Exterior Night," by which he returns to the subject of the 1970s far-left militants the Red Brigades and their wave of kidnappings and executions of political figures, including Christian Democrat party president Aldo Moro.
The 2021 European Film Awards were presented in Berlin, but without an audience due to the ongoing pandemic, with Bosnian film "Quo Vadis, Aida?" (Where are you going, Aida?), set amidst the Srebrenica massacre, winning best film.
European Film Awards 2021 favorites
After winning other top accolades, "Titane," "The Father" and "Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn" are now vying for Europe's version of the Oscar.
Image: Focus Features/ZUMA/imago images
'Titane'
French director Julia Ducournau's body-horror film has already won one of the world's most important film awards, the Golden Palm at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival. It has been nominated for best film, best director, best actress and best actor at the European Film Awards.
Image: Carole Bethuel
'The Father'
Veteran actor Anthony Hopkins shines in this drama as a father who has dementia. "The Father" by director Florian Zeller was nominated for the Golden Globe, and Hopkins took home an Oscar for best actor. Now the film enters the race in the film, director, screenplay and leading actor categories.
Image: Sean Gleason/Sony Pictures Classics/AP/dpa/picture alliance
'Quo Vadis, Aida?'
This Bosnian-Serbian civil war drama focuses on the character of Aida, who works as a translator for the UN during the conflict in 1995 — with fatal consequences. Jasna Duricic (pictured) hopes to win the lead actress award, while director Jasmila Zbanic is up for best director, best screenplay and best film.
Image: Neon/AP/picture alliance
Director Radu Jude
Romanian director Radu Jude enters the race with his controversial Berlinale winner "Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn." While the movie about a teacher who releases an amateur porn video was dismissed by some critics as fluff, it is also a highly political film. The movie was nominated for the European Film Awards in two categories: best director and best screenplay.
Paolo Sorrentino has three chances to win a European Film Award with "The Hand of God." It's up for best film, best director and best screenplay and tells the story of a young man's life in 1980s Naples, roughly based on the director's own experiences. Sorrentino returned to his home city of Naples to film it.
Image: Paolo Cotello/IS/MPI/Capital Pictures/picture alliance
Actress Carey Mulligan
"Promising Young Woman" stars English actress Carey Mulligan as a former medical student who wants to avenge the death of her friend. At this year's Oscars, Mulligan was nominated for best actress in a leading role, yet only the screenplay received an award. That may change at the European Film Awards as Mulligan gets another shot at the top acting prize.
Image: Focus Features/ZUMA/imago images
Actor Tahar Rahim
Frenchman Tahar Rahim plays Guantanamo detainee Mohamedou Ould Slahi in the film "The Mauritanian" and was nominated for best actor. The film is based on Slahi's memoirs and features a top-notch cast including Jodi Foster, Benedict Cumberbatch and Rahim, who won the European Film Award in 2009 and two Cesars in 2010 for his role in "The Prophet."
Image: Graham Bartholomew/tobis Film/dpa/picture alliance
Actor Franz Rogowski
Renowned for his roles in cult films including "Victoria" (2015) and "Undine" (2020), German actor Franz Rogowski portrays in "Great Freedom" a man who is repeatedly sent to prison in post-war Germany for being gay. The Austrian drama directed by Sebastian Meise is also nominated as best European university film.
Like "Promising Young Woman," "Lamb" is also nominated in the "European Discovery" category. In the Icelandic-Swedish-Polish co-production, a childless couple makes a shocking discovery on their sheep farm. A dark, fairy-tale-like film unfolds. Last month, the movie already won the award for best special effects.
Image: LiljaJons/A24/AP/picture alliance
Documentary 'Babyn Jar'
Babyn Jar is a ravine near Kyiv. On September 29 and 30, 1941, a German Sonderkommando 4a of a special deployment unit shot 33,771 Jews there, with the help of two Ukrainian police battalions. Director Sergei Loznitsa uses rarely-seen footage from archives and is considered a favorite for best documentary. He grew up in Kyiv and studied film in Moscow.
Image: ATOMS & VOID
Documentary 'Mr. Bachmann and his Class'
Director Maria Speth's (left) film about elementary school teacher Dieter Bachmann (right) and his relationship with his students won the Lola prize for best documentary at the German Film Awards and a Silver Bear at the 2021 Berlin Film Festival. At the European Film Awards held on December 11, yet another prize may be on the horizon.
