French thriller sweeps Europe film awards
From Karin Strohecker

BERLIN—French thriller “Cache” (“Hidden”), featuring videotapes, obsession and the pain of facing up to one’s past, swept the 18th European Film Awards in Berlin on Saturday.
Sharing the limelight was Scottish actor Sean Connery, who received a lifetime achievement award. “Hidden,” directed by Michael Haneke, won six awards, including Best Film, Best Director and Best Actor. Many critics felt the film, starring Daniel Auteuil as a TV presenter and Juliette Binoche as his wife, should have won the prestigious Palme d’Or it was nominated for at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, but the prize eventually went to the Dardenne brothers’ “L’Enfant.”
“This is like a deja vu,” Austrian Haneke told the awards ceremonies in the German capital, recalling winning the best director category at the Cannes festival in May. “It feels a bit like Christmas.” A total of 47 films were judged by 1,600 European Film Academy (EFA) members representing a broad spectrum of the industry. While they have yet to gain the prestige of high-profile European film festivals in Cannes, Venice and Berlin, the awards are widely respected in the film industry and sometimes seen as Europe’s equivalent to the Oscars.
CONNERY STARS
The biggest star of the evening was Connery, who received an EFA lifetime achievement award. Sporting a tartan dinner suit, he was cheered and applauded as he accepted the silver statue. “To sustain a long period in acting, you have to have a simplicity in life, you need to be almost childlike,” he told journalists later. Connery found fame and fortune as the suave and sophisticated British secret agent James Bond, a role he played six times.
He also worked as a producer and director and won an Oscar as veteran Chicago cop, Jim Malone, in “The Untouchables” in 1987. While the EFA backed “Hidden,” cinemagoers voted in favour of “Sophie Scholl - The Final Days,” the story of a German student and anti-Nazi campaigner.
In the People’s Choice category, in which viewers cast their vote over the Internet, Scholl won best director for Marc Rothemund and best actress for Julia Jentsch. The film follows six days in the life of Scholl, who, together with her brother and friends, founded the resistance group “White Rose.” Jentsch, who also received the EFA’s best actress prize, said she was moved by the reaction she had received from people around the world. “We wanted the film to pass on the message of the White Rose and of Sophie Scholl,” said Jentsch.