Melancholia tops European Film Awards

Lars von Trier's apocalyptic drama Melancholia walked away with the top award, European Film 2011, at the 24th European Film Awards in Berlin on Saturday.

The film also won for Best Cinematographer (Manuel Alberto Claro) and Best Production Designer (Jette Lehmann). It topped a field of nominees that included the 2010 Oscar Best Picture winner, The King's Speech, which was released in 2011 in Europe.

The latter film's star, Oscar winner Colin Firth, did win the award for Best European Actor. Tilda Swinton, who lost the Cannes Film Festival best actress award to Melancholia star Kirsten Dunst, won for Best European Actress for her role in We Need to Talk About Kevin.

King's Speech also won Best Editor and the People's Choice Award. Danish director Susanne Bier, who was seemingly slammed by von Trier at the same inflammatory Cannes press conference that caused him to be named persona non grata for his jokes about Nazis, beat von Trier to win Best Director for In a Better World.

The Artist, considered by many a top candidate for this year's Best Picture Oscar, won a single award, Best Composer, for Ludovic Bource.

Other winners who figure in this year's Oscar race included Wim Wenders' dance documentary Pina, which is shortlisted in the Oscar doc category and is Germany's entry in the foreign-language race; and the animated film Chico & Rita, which is in the running in the Oscar animated-feature category.

The awards were voted on by more than 2,500 members of the European Film Academy.

Melancholia had entered the ceremony with eight nominations, twice as many as any other film.

Roman Polanski's The Ghost Writer won the award last year; previous winners included Michael Haneke's The White Ribbon, Cristian Mungiu's 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck's The Lives of Others and Pedro Almovodar's Tallk to Her.

The full list of winners:

EUROPEAN FILM 2011:

Melancholia,

Denmark/Sweden/France/Germany

Written & directed by: Lars von Trier

Produced by: Meta Louise Foldager & Louise Vesth

EUROPEAN DIRECTOR 2011:

Susanne Bier for Haevnen (In a Better World)

EUROPEAN ACTRESS 2011:

Tilda Swinton in We Need to Talk About Kevin

EUROPEAN ACTOR 2011:

Colin Firth in The King's Speech