Jacques Audiard’s genre-bending Emilia Pérez wins best film at European Film Awards

All-dancing, all-singing musical Emilia Pérez has twirled itself into contention for next year’s Oscars, as Jacques Audiard’s genre-bending drama scooped four out of five top prizes at this year’s European Film Awards.

At Saturday evening’s ceremony in the Swiss city of Lucerne, the veteran French film-maker won best film, best director and best screenplay prizes for his Spanish-language musical, about a Mexican cartel boss who has a sex-change operation and tries to make up for past crimes.

Karla Sofía Gascón, the actor who plays both the trans woman Emilia Pérez and her prior incarnation Juan “Manitas” Del Monte, scooped the best actress prize.

Accepting her prize, Gascón said she had chosen to wear a blue dress because she believed “deeply” in European values. “There are European roots of many human rights and laws”, she said. “We have been pioneers in the world in passing laws that make life better for many people.”

Audiard’s triumph mirrors that of fellow French film-maker Justine Triet’s Anatomy of a Fall, who also went home with four top prizes last year. Given the more ambivalent critical reception that Emilia Pérez has received since it’s Cannes premiere in May, many critics had expected a wider spread of accolades across the list of nominees.

Sometimes pitched as Europe’s answer to the Academy Awards, the EFAs are often a bellwether for European hopes at the better-known Oscars.

The 37th edition of the EFAs were the last to be held in December, with the annual ceremony moving to the pre-awards season in January from 2026 – allowing distributors to streamline marketing campaigns and build up more of an intense buzz around select European titles.

The European Film Awards aim to recognise the best films of the last 12 months from geographical Europe, meaning works from EU and non-EU member states are included. This year’s nominees also included several films that were made outside Europe but co-produced by companies from the continent.

The best documentary prize went to No Other Land, in which Palestinian film-maker Basel Adra documents the Israeli military’s forced displacement of people from his native Masafer Yatta, a collection of villages in the West Bank. The film, made by a Palestinian-Israeli collective, won the documentary prize at the Berlin festival earlier this year.

Adra accepted the award via video link alongside Israeli journalist Yuval Abraham, who said the Israeli government was “starving the people of Gaza as a policy”. “We have a message for European governments”, he said. “It’s not enough to demand a ceasefire, a ceasefire needs to be imposed.”

The best actor prize went to Abou Sangaré, who plays a young asylum seeker working as a delivery rider in Souleymane’s Story. The Guinea-born actor, who is still awaiting the outcome of a residency status application in France, also accepted the prize remotely as he couldn’t travel to Switzerland due to problems with his ID documents.

Latvian director Gints Zilbalodis won best European animated film for Flow, an eco-fable about a cat leading a gang of animals through a post-apocalyptic, post-human landscape. Dispensing with dialogue and anthropomorphism, it was hailed by IndieWire as “the most groundbreaking animated film about nature since Bambi”.

Europeans have started to return to cinemas after the hiatus of the pandemic, with viewing figures up by 18% in 2023. France remains the continent’s most reliable nation of cinephiles, with 180.8 million tickets sold in 2023, followed by the UK, Germany and Spain.

What drew audiences back to the big screen, however, was mostly made in Hollywood. Only a quarter of tickets sold in Europe were for homegrown cinema. Hampered by language barriers and staggered release theatrical release dates, the European blockbuster remains the great white whale of the continent’s film industry.

In last year’s resounding EFA winner, Triet’s Anatomy of a Fall, Europe at least produced a critical hit that lovers of art-house cinema could rally around. In spite of being snubbed by France’s Oscar committee, the film grossed a considerable $36m worldwide, emulating the commercial success of 2022’s EFA winner, Ruben Östlund’s Triangle of Sadness.

At $8.8m in global box office takings so far, Emilia Pérez hasn’t looked likely to replicate the success of last year’s winners, though that could change on the back of its prize haul and with cinematic releases in Italy and Scandinavia still to come next year.

Full list of awards

European film Emilia Pérez

European director Jacques Audiard, Emilia Pérez

European actor Abou Sangare, Souleymane’s Story

European actress Karla Sofía Gascón, Emilia Pérez

European screenwriter Jacques Audiard, Emilia Pérez

European documentary No Other Land

European animated film Flow

European discovery prize Armand

European short film The Man Who Could Not Remain Silent

European young audience award The Remarkable Life of Ibelin

European cinematography The Substance

European editing Emilia Pérez

European production design The Girl With The Needle

European costume design The Devil’s Bath

European hair and make-up When The Light Breaks

European original score The Girl With The Needle

European visual effects The Substance

European sound Souleymane’s Story

European university film award Three Kilometres To The End Of The World

European lifetime achievement award Wim Wenders

European achievement in world cinema Isabella Rossellini

Eurimages international co-production Labina Mitevska