NLet’s say Manuel Neuer saved a Lionel Messi penalty at the World Cup. That’s unlikely, Neuer isn’t a 911 killer and Messi isn’t a loser, and what’s more, Neuer went on Christmas vacation far too early. Well, Hannes Por Halldorsson saved a penalty kick from Messi, as goalkeeper for the Iceland national team, at the last World Cup. And what he has unassailably ahead of Neuer: Halldorsson’s directorial debut “Cop Secrets” about two supercops who discover that they are both gay was just nominated for best comedy at the 35th European Film Awards.
According to the definition of the film academy, Iceland belongs to the European cinema family, just like Ukraine or Israel (and, by the way, Palestine, which Iceland recognizes as an independent state). It’s not an exact geographic definition, but a cultural one. European cinema has always defined itself through its auteur filmmakers, explains French producer Philippe Bober on the awards stage in Reykjavik, adding slightly maliciously: “In contrast to American cinema, where the pipeline that wanted to be filled was always there first.”
It’s a definition that continues to hold true and is affecting European cinema more than ever before. There are more pipelines and they’re called streaming platforms, and all the big ones are owned by the Americans and are either filled with US products or strictly American-made ones. More than ever, European auteur film is on the defensive and has been in even greater distress since the pandemic because viewers are going to the cinema less, especially art house cinemas.
One could see this 35th Film Awards as symbolic on the very edge of the continent: Europe’s cinematic art marginalized on its own territory. That would of course be unfair to the Icelanders, hosts with heart and soul, who have seven cinemas in Reykjavik for 120,000 inhabitants, which most German cities of this size could take as a model.
On the evening before the film awards, the Bio Paradis cinema is almost sold out when it shows “Die bleierne Zeit”, the 40-year-old Gudrun Ensslin film by Margarethe von Trotta, who comes by at the end for a question and answer session and about rebellion at the time and today speaks: “Perhaps I should also stick to the street; yes, I think I will do that one day.”
The building of a trauma
The film prize, which alternates between Berlin and another European capital every year, has seldom taken place in such an impressive location. The “Harpa” cultural center, right on the waterfront of the old port, is a parade of modern architectural architecture like the Guggenheim in Bilbao, two offset blocks on sloping edges, encased by honeycomb glass that reacts to lighting moods. Its history is closely linked to deregulated market liberalism, to the national trauma of Iceland’s near-bankruptcy in the financial crisis of 2008, when the country’s big banks became over-expanded and had to be nationalized.
The Harpa, prestige project of a banking consortium (Deutsche Bank was also involved), was just a shell and could have become a ruined monument to the hubris of neoliberalism – if the state and the capital had not stepped in and completed the concert hall; they will continue to pay for another three decades on the loan they have taken out. Incidentally, the rejection of this colossus by the Reykjaviks had to be dismantled by the writer Halldor Gudmundsson, who for a long time organized Iceland’s appearance at the Frankfurt Book Fair and, as the founding director of Harpa, brought the most interesting artists to the hall (although the bank madness had at times almost halved the value of the Icelandic krona ). On this evening in the Harpa, all the important prizes – director, screenplay, leading actor, best film – go to Ruben Östlund’s “Triangle of Sadness”, which sinks a cruise ship as a symbol of capitalist society.
Kinokleinstaaterei
“Triangle” is the only one of the nominees who has made a cinematic career across Europe, also thanks to the Palme d’Or in Cannes. Otherwise, small-scale cinemas continue to prevail in Europe: Local successes rarely make it across borders. In fact, compared to 30 or 40 years ago, it has gotten worse; At least at that time French, Italian and Spanish productions were more widespread, which is hardly the case today, in the cinema as little as in streaming.
Apparently, film is one of those industries in which the market can no longer function because the preponderance of one market player – namely Hollywood – has become too overwhelming. There are still two reasonably functioning cinematographies in Europe, the English (as Hollywood’s extended workbench) and the French (which is still self-sufficient), and that was also noticeable in Reykjavik: those who consistently didn’t think it was necessary were nominated personally Appearing were the British (Kenneth Branagh, Paul Mescal) and the French (Léa Seydoux, Alice Diop). And of course Ursula von der Leyen, who thanked us in a video for the newly created film award for sustainability, which the European Commission received for its “Green Deal”.
The disregard of this price by “big ones” who simulate “presence” via video switching has a history. The academy and its prize, launched in Berlin in 1988, barely survived in the 1990s due to a lack of money and fellow campaigners; if you mention award ceremonies from back then to Mike Downey, the current chairman, he claps his hands in silence. The academy has never really managed to establish itself as a powerhouse alongside the Oscars, the Césars and Cannes.
Late, hopefully not too late, that could change now. Downey speaks of a “Marshall Plan” for European cinema, based on the reconstruction of Europe after the Second World War. The Commission in Brussels gives money for all sorts of film purposes, but is much too attached to the ideology of the market economy, i.e. what makes sense to them when it comes to protecting the European steel industry or agriculture from unfair competition is still reflected in their thoughts and actions in the area of the cultural industries not enforced.
The Harpa culture house at the old port of Reykjavik
Quelle: Universal Images Group/Getty Images
So there needs to be another institution willing to take the lead, and the European Film Academy seems poised to do so. Their most important task is to rebuild the eroded viewer base for European films in their homeland – and not to limit themselves to the one, big evening of the awards ceremony. There are now film club offers for young people, a program for filmmakers at risk and one for the preservation of European film heritage. This year, a ‘European Film Month’ was held in many cinemas in 50 major European cities, showing many of the nominees, with significant audience success; Downey wants to increase this to 100 and soon to 200 cities and work with art house streamer Mubi.
2022 was a strong European year, with “Holy Spider” (the story of a woman serial killer in patriarchal Iran), “Close” (a close relationship between pubescent boys), “Corsage” (a completely different “Sissi” interpretation) and the Berlinale Winner “Alcarràs” (on the eviction of a fruit growing family from their land by solar panels).
Collective thong yanking
Now simply calling for more regulation is never enough, everyone needs to pull themselves together. The film academy seems willing and able to do this. The show on Saturday evening did not need to hide from any other award in terms of technology and staging, it was even extremely innovative. The same rhetoric of laudators and acceptance speeches was contrasted by what we call “focus groups”: during a break in the game, Lithuanian basketball players talked in normal terms about the nominated films in a category, the guests of an ice cream parlor in Reykjavik (“Where the ice never melts”) , how true, how true!) about those in another.
While we’re on the subject of yanking the strap: it’s a sign of inadequacy if you have to bother Manuel Neuer to have one more German name in a report on the European Film Awards. Well, Margarethe von Trotta received the Life Prize, Albrecht Schuch and Nina Hoss were allowed to award prizes, but there was only one nomination for a current German film, Meltem Kaptan as “Rabiye Kurnaz”, and it went empty-handed. The last German winner (“Toni Erdmann”) was six years ago, last year there were no German nominees at all.
The Icelanders, meanwhile, are equally creative and enterprising. When European film was celebrating, just a few miles away, Jodie Foster was on one of the eight studio stages that now exist here, filming her new series, True Detective; the savvy Icelanders lured Hollywood with their gorgeous scenery when the crown was cheap and are now offering him the full production package now that the crown has become expensive again. In the Paradis cinema they show for an hour what new projects they have up their sleeves. Yes, they are family dramas – “the old couple who live in a hut by the volcano and have nothing more to say to each other,” as one producer exaggerated self-deprecatingly. But you also saw a trailer where the tail fin of an airplane sticks out of the eternal snow, with a swastika on it, and inside there seems to be a frozen corpse that looks suspiciously like Adolf Hitler. And Hannes Por Halldorsson wouldn’t be averse to making a large-scale remake of his cop thriller. Maybe with other footballers who have become something in the film, like Eric Cantona and Vinnie Jones? “Sure, bring me these and I’ll get started.”