Bilbao-born Pablo Berger won the award for best European animated film this Saturday thanks to his Robot Dreams. The fourth feature film by the Spanish filmmaker is a hymn to friendship and the city of New York through the relationship between a dog and his pet, a robot, in a sentimental drama without words, but bustling with sounds and noises. On stage, Berger asked the audience attending the 36th awards ceremony, held in Berlin, headquarters of the European Film Academy, to repeat that “animation is not a genre” (as Guillermo del Toro), assured that he was not going to stop until the industry treats animators “as equals” and encouraged, after asking his producer, Sandra Tapia, to accompany him on stage, other filmmakers to “explore the endless possibilities of animation”. Finally, he dedicated the award to “the creative and vibrant Spanish animated film industry.” It's a great end to a week in which Robot Dreams, First, it has reached commercial theaters, and then, it was learned that the Hollywood Academy included it along with They shot the pianist, by Fernando Trueba and Javier Mariscal, and unicornwars, by Alberto Vázquez, among the 30 titles that may enter its category at the Oscars: the first selection, which will leave that race at 15 films, will be made public on December 21.
There was half an hour in which Spanish cinema shone. Among the awards considered technical, announced a few days ago, The Snow Society, from JA Bayona, won the best makeup and hairstyling award, for Ana López-Puigcerver, Belén López-Puigcerver, David Martí and Montse Ribé, and the best visual effects award, for Félix Bergés and Laura Pedro (both teams are also in the race of the Oscars). And in that segment Isabel Coixet (Sant Adrià de Besòs, 63 years old) received one of the three honorary awards, the so-called European Achievement in World Cinema. The other two honorary awards went to the British actress Vanessa Redgrave (who thanked her in a recorded video, as she was unable to travel), in the tribute to a career section, and the legendary Hungarian filmmaker Béla Tarr was honored with the honorary trophy of the presidency and the council of the Academy, created for this occasion.
Coixet, presented by Laia Costa, the protagonist of her One Love, and after a video that reviewed his prolific career, most of it in English, he thanked him for the award and recalled: “When something comes from a very strong place in your heart, there is someone who will like it and connect with what you do.” Very early in his career, she discovered that “behind the camera there are no borders, passports, flags or limits.” “I wish the world was like that,” she said. He also declared his love for Agnieszka Holland and, in closing, joked about the elongated silhouette of the statuette: “Someone, not me, has said that it looks like a sex toy, but the Academy could put some batteries in it next year and thus give it a utility.”
In the rest of the ceremony, boring, long and desolate in its tone, there was no color: the French Anatomy of a fall, by French director Justine Triet, won all the awards for which it was competing: best film, direction, script (by Triet and Arthur Harari), editing (announced days before) and leading actress, for Sandra Hüller. The German performer is clearly the performer of the year, thanks to her roles, in this courtroom drama, as a widow accused of murdering her husband and as the wife of the commandant of Auschwitz in The area of interest, by Jonathan Glazer, a film for which he was also competing in this category. With the award in hand, Hüller pointed out that the statuette is a woman, and she asked for a moment of silence to implore and “imagine peace” in the hard times that everyone is experiencing.
![The French director Justine Triet, with the award for best director for 'Anatomy of a Fall'.](https://imagenes.elpais.com/resizer/hAo72eKcJhHUVgnKV0cxvzErkgs=/414x0/cloudfront-eu-central-1.images.arcpublishing.com/prisa/TWAPWIWQV7OIDKKPPDBW6PSSCY.jpg)
The exuberant quality of European cinema this season has been overshadowed by the sweep of the last Palme d'Or at the Cannes festival, which curiously is not its country's candidate for the Oscars, a highly debatable decision made by a committee. There were no prizes for Green Border, by Agnieszka Holland; I, captain, by Matteo Garrone; neither Fallen Leaves, by Aki Kaurismäki, which a few weeks ago international critics, through its Fipresci association, recognized as the best title of 2023. The aforementioned The area of interest achieved the best sound and the Italian The chimera the one with the best production design. From the shadow of Anatomy of a fall only the danish came out The Promise Land, thanks to its awards for best actor, for its star Mads Mikkelsen (who, coincidentally, worked with Berger in the Spaniard's first feature film, Torremolinos, 73), for best costume design and best photography.
In the rest of the awards, the award for best documentary stands out, for Smoke Sauna Sisterhood, by Anna Hints; European discovery of the year, for the British How To Have Sex, by Molly Manning Walker, and the youth award, for the also British Scrapper, from Charlotte Regan. The Academy has 4,600 members from 52 countries, a list that includes Israel and Palestine.
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