No awards for Belgian co-productions at the European Film Awards in Berlin | film

The film, which won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival in May, won on Saturday evening in Berlin in the categories of Best European Film, Best European Director, Best European Screenwriter, Best Actress (Sandra Höller) and Best Editing. The courtroom drama with suspenseful undertones also won the European University Film Award, which, as the name suggests, is given to university students.

Italian director Matteo Garrone’s “Io capitano,” a co-production of Tarantula Belgium, was unable to secure a nomination in the Best Picture and Best Director categories. The film revolves around the journey of Sidou and Moussa, two Africans who decide to leave Dakar, the capital of Senegal, for Europe. They travel through the desert, experience the horror of Libyan detention centers and make perilous crossings by sea.

The same applies to Polish director Agnieszka Holan’s film “The Green Border”, which returned empty-handed despite three nominations in the categories of Best Picture, Best Director and Best Screenplay. The film, a co-production of Beluga Tree from Brussels, takes the viewer to the border between Belarus and Poland. Migrants wishing to enter the European Union are facing an unprecedented geopolitical crisis.

The Franco-Belgian film “Vincent doit mourir” by French director Stephane Castang was in contention for this year’s European Discovery Award, but also lost. In the satirical thriller, co-produced by GapBusters from Liège, protagonist Vincent Borel is suddenly forced to flee because his entourage wants to kill him, except for a waitress.

The European Film Awards, organized by the European Film Academy since 1988, honor the best films from the European film sector.