Nordic films won the European Discovery – Prix FIPRESCI Award, the European Young Audience Award and three arts and crafts awards, as well as a minority co-production winning the European Documentary Award.

The French feature Emilia Pérez was the biggest winner when the 37th European Film Awards were presented in Lucerne, Switzerland on December 7. Scooping a total of five awards – for European Film, Director, Screenwriter, Actress and the Excellence Award for European Editing – Jacques Audiard’s Spanish-language, genre-bending, transgender musical Emilia Pérez received the highest number of prizes at the ceremony.

It was also a triumphant night for the Nordics. Among the evening’s winners were two Norwegian films and one minority co-production from the same country, as well as three Excellence Awards to Nordic films for arts and crafts achievements.

The European Documentary Award went to Palestinian/Norwegian feature doc No Other Land, directed by Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor, Basel Adra and Hamdan Ballal. This Palestinian-Israeli collective has also produced the film, with Fabien Greenberg and Bård Kjøge Rønning from Norway’s Antipode Films as minority co-producers. No Other Land tells the story of Palestinian activist Adra, who teams up with Israeli investigative journalist Abraham, and depicts the eradication of Palestinian villages by Israeli soldiers and settlers in the West Bank’s Masafer Yatta area.

With the recently introduced regulation, No Other Land and the other nominated films in the European Documentary category (as well as the Animated Feature category) are also eligible for the award for European Film, which was bestowed on Emilia Pérez.

Just prior to the European Film Awards, No Other Land won the top award for Best Feature Documentary of 2024 at the International Documentary Association’s 40th IDA Documentary Awards in Los Angeles, where in addition it won the award for Best Director and two other prizes.

This year’s winner of the European Discovery – Prix FIPRESCI Award was Norwegian Halfdan Ullmann Tøndel‘s Armand. The award is presented in co-operation with the International Federation of Film Critics, FIPRESCI, and goes to a director for a first full-length feature film.

With an ensemble cast led by Renate Reinsve, Armand centres around a parents-teachers meeting at an elementary school to discuss the young boy Armand’s alleged disturbing behaviour. The Norwegian/Dutch/German/Swedish feature is produced by Andrea Berentsen Ottmar for Norway’s Eye Eye Pictures, in co-production with Keplerfilm, One Two Films, Prolaps Produktion and Film i Väst.

The European Young Audience Award was bestowed on Benjamin Ree‘s The Remarkable Life of Ibelin (Ibelin), also from Norway. The feature documentary tells the indeed remarkable story of Mats Steen, a Norwegian gamer who died of a degenerative muscular disease at the age of 25. His parents mourned what they thought had been a lonely and isolated life, when they started receiving messages from online friends around the world. The Remarkable Life of Ibelin recreates the rich life of Mats' avatar Ibelin in the gaming world of World of Warcraft, and is produced by Ingvil Giske for Medieoperatørene.

Among the three nominated films in the Young Audience category, addressing audiences between 12 and 14 years of age, was also the Norwegian/Danish production Lars is LOL (Lars er LOL), directed by Eirik Sæter Stordahl.

Returning to Armand, the feature was nominated for the European University Film Award, in addition to Reinsve being nominated for the European Actress Award for her role in the film. So were Danish actresses Trine Dyrholm and Vic Carmen Sonne, both for The Girl with the Needle (Pigen med nålen). The other nominees were Tilda Swinton for Pedro Almodóvar’s The Room Next Door (La habitación de al lado) and Karla Sofía Gascón for Emilia Pérez. As previously mentioned, the prize went to Spain’s Gascón, who became the first trans actress to win the award. In the male category, Guinean actor Abou Sangare won the European Actor Award for his role in Suleyman’s Story (L'Histoire de Souleymane) by French director Boris Lojkine.

The Girl with the Needle, written by director Magnus von Horn together with Line Langebek, was also nominated for the European Screenwriter Award, which was taken by Audiard for Emilia Pérez as well.

Among the Excellence Awards, which honours the arts and crafts of filmmaking in eight categories, the Danish/Polish/Swedish production The Girl with the Needle took two prizes: Jagna Dobesz won the award for European Production Design and Frederikke Hoffmeier for European Original Score. Furthermore, Evalotte Oosterop won the European Make-Up & Hair award for When the Light Breaks (Ljósbrot), the Icelandic majority production written and directed by Rúnar Rúnarsson. While the European Film Academy announced the eight Excellence Awards last month, the winners received their awards at Saturday’s ceremony in Lucerne.

The European Film Academy also honoured veteran director Wim Wenders, who is a founding member and former President of the Academy, with a Lifetime Achievement Award for his body of work, and actress Isabella Rossellini with the European Achievement in World Cinema Award.

To see the full list of winners, CLICK HERE.