The 21st edition of the « Etoiles et Toiles du Cinéma Européen » event, which pays tribute to Eurimages-supported international co-productions, should have come to a close on 17 November 2020 with a public screening at the Odyssée cinema in Strasbourg. However, in an exceptional context of lockdown, the closing ceremony was recorded in the presence of the President of Eurimages and the jury mainly composed of Ambassadors to the Council of Europe and the Deputy Secretary General of the Council of Europe. We invite you to watch this video on YouTube by clicking here.

During this event, the Italian Ambassador to the Council of Europe, President of the jury, awarded the following prizes:

- the Odyssée – Council of Europe prize for Artistic Creation went to the co-production ARRHYTHMIA (RU, FIN, DE) by Boris Khlebnikov for the way in which its director succeeded in combining a remarkably mastered cinematographic aesthetic, a direction of actresses and actors that highlights all the talent of the film's main protagonists, the moving way in which it tells a love story resisting a particularly traumatic complex, and the relevance of a subject with a universal dimension;

- the Odyssée – Council of Europe for Human Rights went to the co-production I DON'T CARE IF WE GO DOWN IN HISTORY AS BARBARIANS (RO, CZ, FR, BG) by Radu Jude which shows the struggle that a young female director must go through to reconstruct episodes from a guilty and criminal past. In doing so, the film highlights the need for a committed cinema that defends the fundamental values of democracy, the rejection of xenophobic hatred and of any extermination based on prejudices that are both racist and criminal;

- a Special Mention was awarded to the co-production IT MUST BE HEAVEN (FR, DE, CA, TR) by Elia Suleiman, for the intelligence and elegant humour with which it deals with an issue that is damaging the situation in the Middle East and, more generally, the desperate state of the whole world.

The Eurimages team would like to thank all those who made this event possible and congratulate the happy winners.