Germany: Justine Triet’s French courtroom drama thriller Anatomy of a Fall has won Best Film at the 2023 European Film Awards (EFA).
A two-time nominee for best actress, Sandra Hüller took home the prize for her barnstorming performance as a writer who may have killed her husband in Anatomy of a Fall.
Hüller asked the audience to “silently, strongly, vividly, imagine peace” during a moment of silence as she accepted her prize. She then addressed the various conflicts that are currently raging in and around Europe.
In addition to sharing the best screenplay award with Arthur Harari for their collaborative script on the intricate murder mystery, Justine Triet won the best director award for Anatomy. Real-life couple Triet and Harari said that writing the script, which is a brutally honest analysis of a failing marriage, “put our relationship to the test but thankfully we survived.”
In the historical drama The Promised Land, directed by Nikolaj Arcel, Danish actor Mads Mikkelsen won best actor for his portrayal of a commoner who becomes a captain.
Other best film nominees, in addition to Jonathan Glazer’s terrifying Holocaust drama The Zone of Interest, were Aki Kaurismäki’s dark, comedic Finnish love story Fallen Leaves, Matteo Garrone’s Italian drama Io Capitano, and Agnieszka Holland’s Polish drama Green Border.
The EFA, which took place at Berlin’s Arena venue near the Spree river, had originally looked like a three-horse race between the works of Falling Leaves, Anatomy of a Fall, and the Finnish “master of silence,” Aki Kaurismäki. In the main categories, the latter two had each gotten five nominations.
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