Loving Vincent: Best Animated Film
The Polish-British co-production Loving Vincent directed by Dorota Kobiela and Hugh Welchman won the Best Animated Film Award. It is the first ever full-length painted film. Using frames stylised to look like paintings by Vincent Van Gogh, the film tells the story of the great painter’s mysterious death.
The film was already making waves during its production phase: the 95-minute movie is made up of 65,000 Van Gogh-style paintings. From among the five thousand applications of artists wanting to work on this unique project, 125 artists were chosen. Together they worked to bring Van Gogh’s story to life, using over three thousand litres of paint.
The story of the life and death of Vincent Van Gogh depicted by Kobiela, Welchman and Polish writer Jacek Dehnel, who is the co-author of the screenplay, comes in the form of the opposite of a crime story. Loving Vincent’s creators draw on classics such as Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane or Akira Kurosawa’s Rashomon.
Even before it premiered, there was extraordinary interest in the film, audiences from around the world were following its progress and distribution rights to the film had been sold to 130 countries. Winning the European Film Award seems to be a guarantee that Loving Vincent will be nominated for an Oscar for the Best Animated Film.
Communion: Best Documentary
During the award ceremony in Berlin, the award for Best Documentary went to Anna Zamecka for her film Communion. In her debut, Zamecka shows coming-of-age as a time of shattering illusions. It tells the story of the 14-year-old Ola, her autistic brother and their father, who has trouble coping with life. It’s a story of a girl’s dream about reconciling a broken family, a story of disappointment and pain.
Zamecka’s documentary, which was first shown in 2016, has been taking international film festivals by storm. Before winning the European Film Award, it had already collected prizes in Locarno, Amsterdam and Leipzig and was met with critical acclaim by documentary film masters such as Joshua Oppenheimer.
Spoor – Best Costume Design
Katarzyna Lewińska took home the award for Best Costume Design for her work on Agnieszka Holland and Katarzyna Adamik’s latest movie Spoor.
In the adaptation of Olga Tokarczuk’s novel for the big screen, Holland and Adamik merged a cinematic fairy tale with an environmental thriller.
The award European Film Awards ceremony took place on 9th December 2017 in Berlin. The full list of EFA winners can be found here.
Source: press materials, compiled by BS, translated by NR, 9 Dec 2017