All the dancing, the singing, the music Emily Perez It surged into next year’s Oscars contention, as Jacques Audiard’s genre-bending drama scooped four of the top five prizes at this year’s European Film Awards.
Saturday evening’s ceremony in the Swiss city of Lucerne, veterans of the French cinema best film, best director and best screenplay awards for the Spanish-language musical, about a Mexican boss who has a change operation and tries to make up for past crimes.
Karla Sofía Gascón, the actress who plays the trans woman Aemilia Pérez, and her previous incarnation Juan “Manitas” Del Monte, looked at the best prize.
Accepting his award, Gascon said he wanted to wear the blue shirt because he believed it was “deep” in European values. “They are the European roots of many rights and laws,” he said. We have been passing laws in the world that make life better for many.
Audiard’s triumph mirrors that of fellow French filmmaker Justin Triet’s Anatomy of a Fall, which also went home with four top prizes last year. While Emilia Pérez received a more difficult critical reception at its Cannes premiere in May, many critics have spread wider accolades across the list of nominees.
Sometimes seen as Europe’s answer to the Academy Awards, the EFAs are often the bellwethers of Europe’s hopes for the better-known Oscars.
The last edition of the EFAs was to be held in December, with the annual ceremony moving to January’s preview period from 2026 – allowing distributors to streamline business campaigns and build a more intense buzz around select European titles.
The European Film Awards aims to recognize the best films of the last 12 months from geographical Europe, including significant works from EU and non-EU member states. This year’s nominees also include a number of films made outside Europe but co-produced by companies from the continent.
The best document for the prize There is no other countryin which Palestinian filmmaker Basel Adra documents the Israeli military forced displacement of people from the homeland of Masafer Yatta, a collection of villages in the West Bank. The film, made by a Palestinian-Israeli collective, won the documentary prize at the Berlin festival earlier this year.
Adra made the decision via a video link alongside Israeli journalist Yuval Abraham, who said the Israeli government “destroyed the people of Gaza as a matter of policy”. “We have news from the European governments,” he said. “It is not enough to ask for fire, a cease-fire must be imposed.”
The best actor award went to Abou Sangare, who plays a young asylum seeker as a delivery rider in Souleymane’s play. Guinea-born actor; who was still waiting for the result of the residence status application in Francehe also received a remote award when he was unable to travel to Switzerland due to problems with his ID documents.
Latvian director Gints Zilbalodis won best European animated film for Flow, an eco-tale about a cat leading a group of animals through an apocalyptic post-human landscape. Dispensing with dialogue and anthropomorphism, it was hailed by IndieWire as “the biggest animated nature film since Bambi.”
Europeans have started to return to cinemas after the pandemic hiatus, with figures expected to rise by 18% in 2023. France remains the most loyal nation of cinephiles on the continent, with 180.8 million tickets sold in 2023, along with the UK, Germany and Spain. .
What drew audiences to the big screen, however, was mostly done in Hollywood. Only a quarter of the tickets sold in Europe for the film were homegrown. Obstructed by language barriers and delayed theatrical release dates, the European blockbuster remains the great white whale of the continental film industry.
In last year’s resounding EFA winner, Triet’s Anatomy of a Fall, Europe certainly produced a critical crisis that could have art film lovers rallying around it. Despite a rock from France’s Oscar committee, the film grossed a whopping $36m worldwide, rivaling the commercial success of the 2022 EFA winner, Ruben Stlund’s Anatomy of Sadness.
At $8.8m in global box office receipts alone, Emilia Pérez did not look likely to the success of last year’s winners, although that could change in the back releases of her tour and with cinema releases in Italy and Scandinavia yet to come. in the second year
Full list of awards
European films Emily Perez
European Directory James Audiard, Emilia Pérez
Actor of Europe Abou Sangare, History of Souleymane
European actress Karla Sofía Gascón, Emilia Pérez
European screenwriter James Audiard, Emilia Pérez
European literature There is no other country
An animated European thread to flow
European discovery prize Armand
A short European film And the man who could not keep silent
European youth award The remarkable life of Ibelin
Cinematography of Europe substance
European Emily Perez
European production design The needle girl
European Council Devil’s bath
European hair as-up When the light
European original score The needle girl
European visual effects substance
The sound of Europe Souleymane’s Story
European University award Three kilometers to the end of the world
European lifetime achievement award Wim Wenders
A European achievement in the world of cinema Isabella Rossellini
Eurimages international co-production Labina Mitevska