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It was plain sailing at this year’s European film awards in Reykjavík for Triangle of Sadness, Ruben Ostlund’s luxury yacht-set satire of western entitlement and self-regard, which won best film as well as three other major prizes.
The Swedish director, fast becoming an EFAs favourite, also took best director and best screenwriter to add to his six European awards for his 2017 art-world roast The Square. Veteran Croatian actor Zlatko Burić scooped best actor for his role as a Russian fertiliser magnate who becomes an unlikely revolutionary aboard Ostlund’s puke-swilling ship of fools.
Ostlund surely would have appreciated the fact that the 35th awards, the first physical edition for three years after the Covid pandemic, took place at Reykjavik’s Harpa Concert Hall, an upscale glass bastion on the Icelandic capital’s harbour with more than a whiff of globalised privilege.
Nevertheless, after the last few subdued ceremonies, this year’s European film awards renewed their reputation for direct political engagement; its traditional USP compared to the more superficial Oscars.
In the European co-production award, it showed its support for Ukrainian film-makers during the current conflict by recognising not one production, but the country’s entire industry. Accepting the prize, producer Darya Bassel referred to Dziga Vertov’s 1929 experimental Man with a Movie Camera, which though regarded as a Soviet classic was filmed partly in Kiev, Kharkiv and Odessa: Kiev and Odessa: “Its identity was stolen,” she claimed. “Just like the identity of our culture is under threat today.”
The European Film Academy doubled up on solidarity for Ukraine by giving best documentary to Mariupol 2, whose Lithuanian director Mantas Kvedaravičius was allegedly killed by Russian forces in April. His daughter received a standing ovation as she told guests: “He lost his life in the kind of selflessness most of us can’t hope to achieve, delivering medicine to people.
