Silvia Posavec

Only few films directed by women have won the European Film Prize.

Three women so far have won the award for Best European Film, the main prize awarded by the European Film Academy: Maren Ade for “Toni Erdmann” (2016), Jasmila Žbanić for “Quo Vadis, Aida?” (2021) and Justine Triet for “Anatomie d’une chute” (2023). This tally seems questionably low, as a total of 36 films have been honoured in this category since the award was founded in 1988. The award is presented by the members of the European Film Academy; every year, professional filmmakers choose from a list of nominees. In 1990, Suzanne Osten from Sweden was shortlisted with “The Guardian Angel”. For a whole decade afterwards, female directors were painfully absent, until a few female participants could be found amongst the nominees again. Since 2015, at least one woman has been represented each year (with the exception of 2020). Assumptions about the reasons for the modest participation of female directors competing for Best European Film are less interesting than looking at the works that were able to secure a majority of the votes of the more than 4,600 members.

“Toni Erdmann”
Maren Ade’s (*1976) tragicomedy tells the story of a spontaneous visit by an old left-wing German music teacher (Peter Simonischek) to his daughter Ines (Sandra Hüller), who works as a successful management consultant in Romania. When the father realises that his careerist daughter wants to get rid of him quickly, he invents the unruly artificial character Toni Erdmann to wrest her attention. Ade’s unconventional portrayal of a generational conflict against the backdrop of a neoliberal economic environment celebrated its world premiere in the main competition of the Cannes Film Festival in 2016. The international trade press ecstatically praised “Toni Erdmann”, for which Ade had also written the screenplay. The German magazine Der Spiegel saw it as ushering in a “new era” for German film. Of the three winning films, it is the most successful to date with 2,225,843 cinema admissions in Europe. Maren Ade represents a new entrepreneurial generation that achieves creative freedom for itself with its own production companies. Komplizen Film released both “The Forest for the Trees” (2004) and won the Silver Bear for “Everyone Else” (2009). As a producer, Maren Ade was involved in Marie Kreutzer’s “Corsage”, which was nominated for Best European Film in 2022.

“Quo Vadis, Aida?”
Bosnian director Jasmila Žbanić (*1974) also appears as a writer and producer. “Quo Vadis, Aida?” is the first feature film to deal with the Srebrenica genocide: in 1995, the Bosnian-Serbian army murdered 8,372 Muslim civilians who were under the protection of the UN. Žbanić’s main character is based on the chronological eyewitness report of a survivor. The translator Aida (Jasna Đuričić) experiences the failure of the international community and the war crimes at close range. The significance of the drama, which was competing for the Golden Lion in Venice, was recognised by the press. Their coverage often went beyond the cinematic and addressed the ongoing tensions in the region. These are reflected in the film's domestic reception: in an interview with a Serbian daily newspaper, Žbanić expressed concern that her film was being withheld from Serbian audiences. Žbanić’s committed films are to be understood as a means for coming to terms with the past. This also applies to her courageous first film “Grbavica”, for which she won the Golden Bear in 2006 and had already been nominated once for the European Film Award.

“Anatomie d’une chute”
While Jasmila Žbanić uses the fate of a family to refer to the suffering of an ethnic group, French director Justine Triet (*1976) delves into the abysses of a couple that works as authors. Samuel (Samuel Theis) is found dead in front of his chalet near Grenoble. As an accident seems unlikely, his wife Sandra (Sandra Hüller) is accused of murder. Sandra Hüller plays an emancipated yet vulnerable woman who was not perceived with much sympathy by the press (similar to Ade’s Ines in “Toni Erdmann”). The director is praised for her sensitive guidance of the actors. Like all of Triet’s previous films, “Anatomie d’une chute” premiered in Cannes and won the main prize. She was the first woman to assert herself both in Cannes and among Film Academy members in the same year.
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Best European Film
The three female directors who won over the European Film Academy with their films were by no means unknown. Their films had screened at A-list festivals, and Ade and Žbanić had already won major awards. In light of their previous success, the Academy’s recognition was delayed, which suggests that they first had to establish themselves. Ade, Žbanić and Triet are European auteur filmmakers who belong to the same generation. Their films reflect the challenges of the reality of their lives: war experiences, generational and relationship conflicts. Thereby they should have broken through the glass ceiling for subsequent generations. However, a recent study by the European Audiovisual Observatory shows that the proportion of women in the European film industry has stagnated since 2013 and remained at an average of 25 % until 2022. Film festivals and awards are important channels for promoting film. Only when films by women are represented in competitions and on nominee lists can they be seen and compete on equal footing with works by male colleagues. As more women have been nominated for Best European Film since 2015, they have also been able to emerge as winners. More diversity in the nominations leads to courageous decisions by members. This is the only way that the European Film Awards can emerge from the shadows of other awards and realise its potential as a true representative of the European film community.

Image: Justine Triet