"Ida" Voted Best Film of 2014!

Łukasz Żal, Agnieszka Odorowicz, Paweł Pawlikowski, Ewa Puszczyńska, Piotr Dzięcioł, Eric Abraham, Rebecca Lenkiewicz. Photo by Piotr Szymański, Polish Film Institute

December 13 marked the European Films Awards ceremony in Riga. Ida, a film co-financed by the Polish Film Institute, received the award for Best European Film of 2014. The film also won the Best European Director award for Paweł Pawlikowski and Best European Screenwriter award for Paweł Pawlikowski and Rebecca Lenkiewicz. Łukasz Żal and Ryszard Lenczewski received the Carlo Di Palma Award for Best European Cinematographer. Ida also received the EFA People’s Choice Award, the winner of which is selected by European viewers in an online vote.

The 27th European Film Awards ceremony was held on December 13 in Riga, the 2014 European Capital of Culture. The awards ceremony was attended by Poland’s Minister of Culture and National Heritage Małgorzata Omilanowska and the General Director of the Polish Film Institute Agnieszka Odorowicz.

Ida Wins 2014 Best European Film Award

The Best European Film Award was presented to Ida director Paweł Pawlikowski and producers Ewa Puszczyńska (Opus Film), Piotr Dzięcioł (Opus Film) and Eric Abraham (Phoenix Film). Ida competed in the awards race against Ruben Östlund’s Force Majeure, Andrei Zvyagintsev’s Leviathan, Lars von Trier’s Nymphomaniac, and Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s Winter Sleep. Ida also received the EFA People’s Choice Award, selected by European viewers in an online vote. Ida competed in this prestigious category against such films as Stephen Frears’ Philomena and Lars von Trier’s Nymphomaniac.

“Thank you Paweł for taking us in this beautiful journey […] and all the people working on this film. I would like to thank the Polish Film Institute and the head of the Polish Film Institute Agnieszka Odorowicz. If not for this institution in Poland our films would not be what they are now,” said Ewa Puszczyńska as she accepted the award.

Paweł Pawlikowski Voted Best European Director

The Best European Director award went to Paweł Pawlikowski, who won the race against Steven Knight (Locke), Andrei Zvyagintsev (Leviathan), Paolo Virzi (Human Capital), Nuri Bilge Ceylan (Winter Sleep) and Ruben Östlund (Force Majeure). 

“I want to thank people who worked with me. I want to share this with my collaborators who put their skills and souls in it,” said Paweł Pawlikowski as he accepted the award fot the Best European Director 2014.

Ida Wins Best European Screenwriter Award

Members of the European Film Academy selected Paweł Pawlikowski and Rebecca Lenkiewicz as Best European Screenwriters of 2014. Other screenwriters nominated in this category included Jean-Pierre Dardenne and Luc Dardenne for Two Days, One Night, Nuri Bilge Ceylan and Ebru Ceylan for Winter Sleep, Steven Knight for Locke, and Andrei Zvyagintsev and Oleg Negin for Leviathan.

Łukasz Żal and Ryszard Lenczewski Win the Carlo Di Palma Award

At the awards ceremony, Łukasz Żal accepted the Carlo Di Palma Award for Best European Cinematographer for his and Ryszard Lenczewski’s work on Paweł Pawlikowski’s Ida.

“I started this film as a camera operator and I continued as DOP. I would like to thank Paweł Pawlikowski, Ewa Puszczyńska, Piotr Dzięcioł fot the trust they gave me,” said Łukasz Żal in his acceptance speech.

Nominations for Polish Filmmakers

Agata Kulesza and Agata Trzebuchowska were both nominated in the Best European Actress category for their performances in Ida. The winner of the Best European Actress Award was Marion Cotillard for her performane in Two Days, One Night.

One of the films nominated in the European Short Film category was Lato 2014 (Summer 2014), a film by Wojciech Sobczak. This animated short, co-financed by the Polish Film Institute, is a raw and poetic greyscale treatise on the desire to dominate an on violence as the driving force of history.

Further details are available at: www.europeanfilmawards.eu.