Pawel Pawlikowski’s Ida was the big winner at the 27th European Film Awards, named Best European Film while also garnering the People’s Choice Award, and distinction for Pawlikowski as Best European Director and Screenwriter, and Ryszard Lenczewski and Lukasz Zal as Best Cinematographers.
Ida centers on Anna who is about to take her vows as a Catholic nun in Poland when she learns from her only surviving relative that she is Jewish. Both women embark on a journey to discover their family story and where they belong. Among the family revelations is that Anna’s parents were murdered during the Nazi occupation in Poland.
Winning the European Film Award for Best Comedy was The Mafia Only Kills in the Summer. Masters of the Universe was named top documentary. And The Art of Happiness was named Best European Animated Feature Films.
Here’s a full rundown of winners:
European Film
Ida Denmark, Poland (80 min) Director: Pawel Pawlikowski
Producer: Eric Abraham, Piotr Dzieciol, Ewa Puszczynska
European Comedy
The Mafia Only Kills in the Summer , Italy (90 min) Director: Pierfrancesco Diliberto
Producer: Mario Gianani, Lorenzo Mieli
European Director
Pawel Pawlikowski, Ida
European Actress
Marion Cotillard, Deux jours, une nuit
European Actor
Timothy Spall, Mr. Turner
European Screenwriter
Pawel Pawlikowski, Ida
European Cinematographer – Prix Carlo Di Palma
Lukasz Zal, Ryszard Lenczewski, Ida
European Editor
Justine Wright, Locke
European Production Designer
Claus-Rudolf Amler, The Dark Valley
European Costume Designer
Natascha Curtius-Noss, The Dark Valley
European Composer
Mica Levi, Under the Skin
European Sound Designer
Joakim Sundström, Starred
European Discovery – Prix Fipresci
The Tribe Ukraine (132 min) Director: Myroslav Slaboshpytskiy
Producer: Valentyn Vasyanovych, Iya Myslytska
European Documentary
Master of the Universe , Austria, Germany (88 min) Director: Marc Bauder
Producer: Markus Glaser, Marc Bauder
European Animated Feature Film
The Art of Happiness, Italy (84 min) Director: Alessandro Rak
Producer: Luciano Stella
European Short Film
The Chicken, Croatia, Germany (15 min) Director: Una Gunjak
Producer: Jelena Goldbach, Siniša Juricic
European Co-Production Award – Prix Eurimages
Ed Guiney
European Film Academy Lifetime Achievement Award
Agnès Varda
European Achievement in World Cinema
Steve McQueen 4
People’s Choice Award for Best European Film
Ida Denmark, Poland (80 min) Director: Pawel Pawlikowski
Producer: Eric Abraham, Piotr Dzieciol, Ewa Puszczynska
Review: Director John Crowley’s “We Live In Time”
It's not hard to spend a few hours watching Florence Pugh and Andrew Garfield fall and be in love. In "We Live In Time," filmmaker John Crowley puts the audience up close and personal with this photogenic British couple through the highs and lows of a relationships in their 30s.
Everyone starts to think about the idea of time, and not having enough of it to do everything they want, at some point. But it seems to hit a lot of us very acutely in that tricky, lovely third decade. There's that cruel biological clock, of course, but also careers and homes and families getting older. Throw a cancer diagnosis in there and that timer gets ever more aggressive.
While we, and Tobias (Garfield) and Almut (Pugh), do indeed live in time, as we're constantly reminded in big and small ways — clocks and stopwatches are ever-present, literally and metaphorically — the movie hovers above it. The storytelling jumps back and forth through time like a scattershot memory as we piece together these lives that intersect in an elaborate, mystical and darkly comedic way: Almut runs into Tobias with her car. Their first chat is in a hospital hallway, with those glaring fluorescent lights and him bruised and cut all over. But he's so struck by this beautiful woman in front of him, he barely seems to care.
I suppose this could be considered a Lubitschian "meet-cute" even if it knowingly pushes the boundaries of our understanding of that romance trope. Before the hit, Tobias was in a hotel, attempting to sign divorce papers and his pens were out of ink and pencils kept breaking. In a fit of near-mania he leaves, wearing only his bathrobe, to go to a corner store and buy more. Walking back, he drops something in the street and bang: A new relationship is born. It's the... Read More