Europa! Europa! EFAs Feeling Broken, Blue and Beautiful
Saturday, November 9, 2013 at 4:52PM The European Film Awards have announced their annual year-straddling list of nominees and featured heavily are several Oscar contenders from 2012 and 2013. Recognisable names like Keira Knightley, Naomi Watts (not for Diana, thankfully) and Jude Law rub shoulders with Felix van Groeningen, Fabrice Luchini and Luminita Gheorghium, which is just how we like it!
However, like many award shows at this time of the year the biggest eyebrows isn't so much in what they nominated, but what they didn't. The cries of "snub!" will surely come thick and fast for Adele Exarchopolous and Lea Seydoux who failed to make the actress nominees for their soaring performances in Blue is the Warmest Color. Lucky then that the film picked up major nominations in picture and director for controversial Abdellatif Kechiche. Movies amassing big nomination hauls include Belgian Oscar hopeful The Broken Circle Breakdown, Italian Oscar hopeful The Great Beauty, and Germany's hit Oh, Boy! while films representing Romania, and Spain (albeit last year) also popped up prominently as did Francois Ozon's In the House.
High profile films amongst films that the EFA didn't find room for include Oscar-nominee Kon-tiki, Only God Forgives, A Hijacking, The Selfish Giant, Berberian Sound Studio (sadly - the best horror film of the last few years!), Borgman, and What Richard Did. Here's the list of nominees + the additional technical winners that have already been announced.
Best European Film
The Best Offer
Blancanieves
Blue is the Warmest Color
The Broken Circle Breakdown
The Great Beauty
Oh Boy!
Best European Director
Giuseppe Tornatore, The Best Offer
Pablo Berger, Blancanieves
Abdellatif Kechiche, Blue is the Warmest Color
Felix van Groeningen, The Broken Circle Breakdown
Paolo Sorrentino, The Great Beauty
François Ozon, In the House
Veerle Baetens in 'The Broken Circle Brokedown'
Best European Actress
Veerle Baetens, The Broken Circle Breakdown
Luminita Gheorghiu, Child's Pose
Keira Knightley, Anna Karenina
Barbara Sukowa, Hannah Arendt
Naomi Watts, The Impossible
Best European Actor
Johan Heldenbergh, "The Broken Circle Breakdown"
Jude Law, "Anna Karenina"
Fabrice Luchini, "In the House"
Tom Schilling, "Oh Boy!"
Toni Servillo, "The Great Beauty"
Tom Schilling in 'Oh Boy!'
Best European Screenwriter
Tom Stoppard, Anna Karenina
Giuseppe Tornatore, The Best Offer
Carl Joos and Felix van Groeningen, The Broken Circle Breakdown
Paolo Sorrentino and Umberto Contarello, The Great Beauty
François Ozon, In the House
Best European Comedy
I'm So Excited!
Love is All You Need
The Priest's Children
Welcome, Mr. President!
Best European Animated Film
The Congress
Jasmine
Pinocchio
Best European Documentary
The Act of Killing
The Missing Picture
Stop-Over
Best European Discovery (FIPRESCI Prize)
Call Girl
Eat Sleep Die
Honey
Oh Boy!
The Plague
Best European Cinematographer
Fill the Void
Best European Editor
The Great Beauty
Best European Production Designer
Anna Karenina
Best European Costume Designer
Blancanieves
Best European Composer
The Best Offer
Best European Sound Designer
Paradise: Faith
Did the EFA miss the boat on those Blue actors or are those Palme d'Ors European honor enough? And I know y'all are just dying to speak up in the comments about that sound design award for Ulrich Seidl's Paradise: Faith. It's unique citations like that that make me cherish award shows that aren't out to predict what the Academy will do.
Reader Comments (23)
Why this?: Naomi Watts (not for Diana, thankfully) a lot of people are saying that she is great in Diana, I do not believe critics, they said many times that bad movies were great and they said many times that great movies were bad, you kill Night Shyamalan with your critics and he is a genius and put in the sky Blanchett performances and she overacts badly
Camilla,
You obviously have some FIlm Experience reading to catch up on (http://thefilmexperience.net/blog/2013/11/6/paging-lacuna-inc-naomi-watts-2013-is-one-shed-rather-forget.html). We are NOT fans of Diana around these parts (well, not in the way the filmmakers would have liked, anyway). No problem following your own path with films, but I suspect reading websites written by film critics will be trouble.
Camila, are you Camilla Parker Bowles defending Diana in some kind of karmic penance??
I can not understand the connection between Diana and The Impossible¡¡¡¡ someone can explain that???? hellooooo¡¡¡¡¡
Welp, looks like the European Film Awards are dead to me. Hard not to read it as a sexism thing after how public that feud got.
They really liked Anna Karenina, didn't they? It was one of the most beautiful pictures I saw last year. Costumes, set design, score, cinematography.
I just saw the comedy Love is All You Need last week, and I liked it more than I expected to. The lead actress, Trine Derholm, is excellent. And I like the Danish films I've seen directed by Suzanne Bier ( this and The Wedding). Good actors and interesting characters. I hope her English language production of Serena with Jennifer Lawrence turns out as well.
why is Naomi Watts consider European? Or do they always group Australia in?
re best actress. Of these i approve:
"Veerle Baetens, The Broken Circle Breakdown
Luminita Gheorghiu, Child's Pose
Keira Knightley, Anna Karenina"
though yes it's super weird to nominate BLUE IS and not its actresses. I mean super weird and super gross since they're the whole show and the whole reason it works
The Impossible was a Spanish funded and run production hence Naomi being included.
Naomi Watts was born in England (moved to Oz when she was 14).
I was so confident that Léa and Adèle were going to win this award as Élodie Bouchez and Natascha Régnier did many years before. Kirsten and Charlotte were also rightfully nominated two years ago. I don't know what the hell happened.
Go Luminita!
To be honest, I wasn't that impressed with the acting in Blue is the Warmest Color. Léa Seydoux and Adèle Exarchopoulos do fine work, but it's not really show. I preferred Seydoux by a long shot even though she really didn't have much of a character arc.
It really was a directorial showcase for me, filled with nifty tricks that constantly altered the tone and focus of the film without overwhelming the small story being told.
Nathaniel you do not know that Watts is british and Barbara Sukowa is german??? Australia is Oceania
you do not have to approve anything, probably you did not see Hannah Arendt and Sukowa's brilliant work on it or maybe you are a jewish and you did not like the movie since there was some controversy there
THE IMPOSSIBLE was a Spanish production, hence its inclusion
Camilla, you sound like English isn't your first language, so I'll cut some slack, but you're being quite offensive and patronizing.
a) There is no connection between Watts in The Impossible and Watts in Diana. Just that the European Film Academy, on the whole, preferred her in the former movie.
b) Sukowa was indeed quite strong in Hannah Arendt, which is a fascinating movie.
c) Veerle Baetens resembles Naomi Watts in the picture above.
d) I'm quite happy at The Great Beauty's haul (and it's editing nomination. It's got really fascinating rhythms). Definitely in the running for favourite film of the year.
Naomi Watts in The Impossible was superlative and it is an european film so deserves the nomination ale also the win
Watts was eligible because she has a British passport. If she had only Australian citizenship, she couldn't have been nominated, even if The Impossible is a European film. When Kirsten Dunst was nominated for Melancholia two years ago, she had recently become a German citizen.
Jan -- thanks for the details. I totally forgot that Dunst story
Arkaan -- in the movie Veerle totally resembles Hilary Swank! She's very good in it, too.
Camilla -- i have not seen hannah arendt so it would be foolish of me to have an opinion about its quality
A correction: Oh Boy sadly isn't the German Oscar submission, Two Lives is.
A weird group of nominees. Happy for Keira even though she didn't deserve it, and pissed Exarchopoulos and Seydoux missed for some weird reason.
Anna Karenina gets Screenplay but not Director?
I hope Blue or Blancanieves wins, but I think this is Broken Circle Breakdown vs. Great Beuaty, with In the House likely taking Screenplay and Gheorghiu hopefully Actress.
Keira does deserve to be nominated. Hers was my favourite English language actress performance of last year. All in all, I think that this Best Actress line-up is better than the Oscar one was this year.
Nathaniel: I guess is negligent to say I only approve some of the nominations if I did not see all of the works...
Barbara Sukowa is deserving and her being a former RWF player means she is like a member of the 12 apostles.
I would be happy with wins for either Blue, Broken or Beauty in the catagories film and director. I haven't seen The Best Offer. Blancanieves and Oh, Boy are ok films, but are not in the same league with the other three films.
Actress should go to Veerle Baetens. I thought this would be a close race between her and Adėle Exarchopoulos. But somehow that race isn't on. Did Adele and Lea split the votes for the nominations?
Actor should go to Toni Servillo, but I wouldn't mind if that award also goes to TBCB.
MYS, you're right! I've only heard buzz about Oh Boy so my memory must have invented its Oscar submission!