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There was an appropriately Spanish flavour to the 2004
European Film Awards - the 17th, since the inaugural
prize-giving in Berlin in 1988. Nor was this just a question
of the venue: the brand-new CCIB Convention
Centre right on the Mediterranean just north of the
centre of Barcelona, with guests housed in the stunning
Hotel Arts. Spain was in the forefront of the Awards
themselves, too, with Alejandro Amenábar picking up
European Director for Mar Adentro (The Sea Inside) and
Javier Bardem European Actor for the same film.
In the event, the only surprise was that Penélope
Cruz did not give Spain a hat-trick by winning
European Actress for Italian drama Non ti muovere
(Don’t Move). But, while the main prize went - as it did
in Venice - to Imelda Staunton for her powerhouse performance
in the title role of Mike Leigh’s Vera Drake,
Cruz won the Jameson People’s Choice Award for Non ti
muovere. And her male counterpart in the People’s
Choice Awards was another local boy: German actor
Daniel Brühl, whose mother was Catalan and who spent
part of his youth in the city. A European Actor-winner
in 2003, Brühl won his Jameson Award this year for
Was nützt die Liebe in Gedanken (Love in Thoughts).
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