Joachim Trier’s Sentimental Value swept the board at 38th European Film Awards in Berlin on Saturday evening.
The film scooped Best Film, Best Director, Best Screenwriter for Eskil Vogt and Trier, as well as Best European Actor and European Best Actress for Stellan Skarsgård and Renate Reinsve respectively and Best Score.
The Cannes Grand Prix winner went into the ceremony as the frontrunner with other strong contenders including Oliver Laxe’s Morocco-set drama Sirāt, Mascha Schilinski’s debut film Sound of Falling and Jafar Panahi’s It Was Just An Accident.
Laxe’s Sirāt dominated the craft awards with wins for Best European Production Designer, Best European Sound Design, Best European Editor, Best European Casting Director and Best European Cinematographer.
In other prizes, Ugo Bienvenu’s Arco continued it award-winning spree to scoop Best European Animated Feature Film.
The work, produced by Natalie Portman produced with Sophie Mas under their joint Paris and New York banner MountainA and Félix de Givry, previously won Best Film At Annecy International Film Festival and is on the Bafta long-list for Best Animated Film.
Iranian director Panahi opened the ceremony in Berlin with an impassioned plea asking the world not to remain silent in the wake of “the unprecedented massacre” unfolding in Iran.
He was speaking ten days into a brutal crackdown by Iran’s hardline government of nationwide popular protests. At least 3,000 protestors are believed to have been killed and another 18,000 arrested, although Panahi reiterated a report of 12,000 deaths in his speech.
“This is not just the pain of one country if the world does not respond to this blatant violence today. Not only Iran but the entire world is at risk. Violence left unanswered becomes normalized and when it become normalized, it’s spread become contagious,” he said.
“When the truth is crushed in one place, freedom suffocates everywhere. Then no-one is safe. Anywhere in the world, not in Iran, not in Europe, not in America… that is precisely why today as filmmakers and artists more than ever, if we are disappointed with politicians, we must at least must refuse to remain silent because silence in a time of crime is not neutrality silence, silence is a participation in darkness.”
There were also honorary prizes for Norwegian acting legend Liv Ullmann and Italian director Alice Rohrwacher, who received a Lifetime Achievement Award as well as the European Achievement in World Cinema Award respectively.
Ullmann used her acceptance speech to express the role of cinema in capturing human reality as well as her consternation at U.S. President Donald Trump being recently presented by Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado with her Nobel Peace Prize.
In the other awards, Maren Ade, Jonas Dornbach, and Janine Jackowski, co-heads of Germany’s Komplizen Film, were feted with the previously announced Eurimages International Co-Production Award.
The trio gave a shoutout to Sentimental Value, the latest of a long line of coproductions which also include The Whistlers by Corneliu Porumboiu, The Story of My Wife by Ildikó Enyedi, About Dry Grasses by Nuri Bilge Ceylan, Corsage by Marie Kreutzer, Yes by Nadav Lapid among many others.
The Full-List of 2026 European Film Awards Winners:
Best European Film
Sentimental Value by Joachim Trier
Best European Director
Joachim Trier for Sentimental Value
Best European Actor
Stellan Skarsgård for Sentimental Value
Best European Actress
Renate Reinsve for Sentimental Value
Best European Animated Feature Film
Arco (France)
Directed by Ugo Bienvenu
Best European Documentary
Fiume o Morte! (Croatia, Slovenia, Italy)
Directed by Igor Bezinović
European Cinematographer
Mauro Herce for Sirāt
Best European Screenwriter
Eskil Vogt, Joachim Trier for Sentimental Value
Best European Editor
Cristóbal Fernández for Sirāt
European Composer (Original Score)
Hania Rani for Sentimental Value
European Casting Director
Nadia Acimi, Luís Bértolo & María Rodrigo for Sirāt
Best European Make-up & Hair Artist
Torsten Witte for Bugonia
European Sound Designer
Laia Casanovas for Sirāt
European Production Designer
Laia Ateca for Sirāt
European Costume Designer
Sabrina Krämer for Sound Of Falling
European Discovery – Prix FIPRESCI
On Falling (United Kingdom, Portugal)
Directed by Laura Carreira
European Young Audience Award
Siblings (Italy)
Directed by Greta Scarano
European Short Film – Prix Vimeo
City of Poets
Directed by John Smith