Emilia Pérez got an early boost in its awards campaign on Saturday night by cleaning up at the 37th European Film Awards, handed out in Lucerne, Switzerland.

Jacques Audiard’s Spanish-language transgender musical won best film, best director and best screenplay honors for Audiard. Karla Sofía Gascón, who plays the titular character, won best actress, becoming the first trans performer to win in the category.

“I didn’t prepare anything because I was sure I wasn’t going to receive anything tonight,” said Gascón, accepting her prize. She thanked Audiard, “the best European director for making the best European actress.” Gascón dedicated here prize “to my mother and to all mothers in this world because their values and their function are sometimes undervalued, [and] I would like to devote this prize to all families and ask all parents to love their children, because, unfortunately, in this world, there are families that prefer their children be criminals than gay people.”

Audiard dedicated his best screenwriting honor to the late, French-Danish actor Niels Arestrup, who the director worked with on films such as The Beat That My Heart Skipped (2005) and A Prophet (2009).

Hoisting his best film trophy, Audiard reminded the crowd that “all of us here in this room are so lucky to be making films in Europe.” He said he would like his country, with its generous government support of cinema, “to serve as an example for all other countries in Europe.”

Emilia Pérez is France’s official submission for the Academy Awards in the best international feature category and a strong contender for several categories, including best actress for Gascón, supporting honors for co-stars Zoe Saldaña and Selena Gomez, and multiple technical categories.

Guinean actor Abou Sangare beat out heavyweights Ralph Fiennes, Daniel Craig and Germany’s Lars Eidinger to take the best actor prize for Boris Lojkine’s Souleymane’s Story, where he plays an African immigrant in Paris struggling to survive and get legalization papers so he can stay.

There were few overtly political statements at the awards, but Palestinian actress Hiam Abbass, presenting the best film award, called on the audience to think of the children of Gaza. “If they ever dreamt or had anything to say or any horizon, death has vanished all their dreams.”

The winners of best documentary No Other Land, which follows the Israeli government’s systematic and violent evictions of Palestinians in the West Bank, used the occasion to speak out against the war in Gaza. Accepting the prize via Zoom, Basel Adra, one of the film’s Palestinian directors, said it was difficult to celebrate with the ongoing “genocide against my people. How Israel is systemically trying to erase us from our homes.” Yuval Abraham, his Israeli co-director, called for action from European governments to pressure the Israeli government to enter a ceasefire by stopping the supply of weapons to Jerusalem. “For the sake of the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza [at] risk of death, for the sake of the hundreds of Israeli hostages, a ceasefire has to be imposed.”

Flow, Latvia’s Oscar hopeful for best international feature, as well as a best animated feature contender, took the European Film Award for best animated feature. The dialog-free drama follows a big-eyed cat caught in an apocalyptic flood who teams up with a geographically diverse pack of critters to escape.

The prize for best short film went to Croatian director Nebojsa Slijepcevic’s The Man Who Could Not Remain Silent, an Oscar frontrunner that won the Palme d’Or earlier this year. The film dramatizes the Štrpci massacre of 1993, when 24 Bosniak Muslims were pulled off a train by a Serbian paramilitary group and only one man, the Croatian Tomo Buzov, stood up against the attackers.

After the Yugoslav War, said Slijepcevic, Buzov’s story was forgotten “because it didn’t fit into any of the narratives, but now it won’t be.”

The European Young Audience Award went to the animated documentary The Remarkable Life of Ibelin, which premiered at Sundance and was snatched up by Netflix.

Armand, a school-set drama from Norwegian director Halfdan Ullmann Tøndel and the country’s best international feature contender for the Oscars, won the European Discovery prize for best first feature.

Winners in the craft categories were announced ahead of Saturday’s gala, with The Substance picking up trophies for best cinematography and best visual effects, The Girl With the Needle taking best score and best production design, and Emilia Pérez winning best editing, among others.

Iconic German director Wim Wenders (Paris, Texas, Pina, Perfect Days) received a European lifetime achievement award. The long list of video tributes to Wenders included clips from Martin Scorsese, Willem Dafoe, Nick Cave and, in a showstopper, Japanese actor Kôji Yakusho, star of Wenders’ Perfect Days, who appeared in character from the film, scrubbing a Toyko public toilet. “Mr. Director! In celebration, I will clean your toilet,” Yakusho quipped. “Prost!”

Receiving his trophy from EFA President Juliette Binoche, Wenders made the first Trump joke of the night. “Thank you, Madame President. So many of us would have liked to call another lady Madame President, but that didn’t happen. If it had, the world would be a better place. But while that other guy pretends to make America great again, this president has a chance to make European cinema shine again.”

Closing his speech, Wenders quoted another U.S. president, John F. Kennedy, calling on the film professionals in the room to ask not what Europe could do for them but what they could do for Europe. “Europe is in trouble right now,” Wenders said, “and I really urge you to think what you can do for Europe because Europe needs you. It needs the film community to produce a more positive, more emotional view of the continent [because] too many people think of it as an economic community, a financial community, but it is an emotional community. It gives us strength, and right now we should give it strength.”

Italian actress Isabella Rossellini was honored with the European Achievement in World Cinema award, presented to her by her Conclave co-star Ralph Fiennes.

“She can claim a pretty decent heritage,” said Fiennes, referencing Rossellini’s legendary filmmaking parents, Oscar-winning actress Ingrid Bergman and Italian neo-realist director Roberto Rossellini, before listing off the “extraordinary talents” she has worked with in her career. “David Lynch, Robert Zemeckis, Peter Weir, Abel Ferrara, Guy Madden, Denis Villeneuve, Alice Rohrwacher and Edward Berger. You might think that they chose her, but for the most part, she chose them.”

While accepting the award, Rossellini said, “If I had to define the engine, the motor of my life, I would say it has been curiosity and the fuel for this motor has been laughter.” She thanked the babysitters who cared for her children when she was off working. “If it wasn’t for the wonderful work of other women who helped me, I couldn’t have the career I have had,” she said. “This is true for all of us women that have careers. My mother said to me the same thing: ‘If it wasn’t for our Jenny, our nanny, I couldn’t have had the career I had. I am as grateful to her, Jenny, as I am to a director of the caliber of Alfred Hitchcock.’”

Macedonian producer and actress Labina Mitevska won this year’s Eurimages International Co-production Award, honoring producers for their contribution to fostering international film collaboration.

See the full list of 2024 European Film Award winners below.

European Film

Emilia Pérez (France), directed by Jacques Audiard, produced by Pascal Caucheteux, Jacques Audiard, Valérie Schermann & Anthony Vaccarello

European Documentary

No Other Land (Palestine, Norway), directed by Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor, Basel Adra & Hamdan Ballal, produced by Fabien Greenberg, Bård Kjøge Rønning, Yuval Abraham, Basel Adra, Rachel Szor & Hamdan Ballal

European Director

Jacques Audiard for Emilia Pérez

European Actress

Karla Sofía Gascón in Emilia Pérez

European Actor

Abou Sangare in Souleymane’s Story

European Screenwriter

Jacques Audiard for Emilia Pérez

European Discovery – Prix FIPRESCI

Armand (Norway, Netherlands, Germany, Sweden), directed by Halfdan Ullmann Tøndel, produced by Andrea Berentsen Ottmar

European Animated Feature Film

Flow, directed by Gints Zilbalodis

European Short Film

The Man Who Could Not Remain Silent, directed by Nebojsa Slijepcevic

European Young Audience Award

The Remarkable Life of Ibelin (Norway), directed by Benjamin Ree, produced by Ingvil Giske

Best Cinematography

The Substance (Benjamin Kračun)

Best Visual Effects

The Substance (Bryan Jones, Pierre Procoudine-Gorsky, Chervin Shafaghi, Guillaume Le Gouez)

Best Production Design

The Girl With the Needle (Jagna Dobesz)

Best Original Score

The Girl With the Needle (Frederikke Hoffmeier)

Best Editing

Emilia Pérez (Juliette Welfling)

Best Costume Design

The Devil’s Bath (Tanja Hausner)

Best Make-Up & Hair

When the Light Breaks (Evalotte Oosterop)

Best Sound

Souleymane’s Story (Marc-Olivier Brullé, Pierre Bariaud, Charlotte Butrak, Samuel Aïchoun, Rodrigo Diaz)

European University Film Award

Three Kilometers to the End of the World (director Emanuel Pârvu)

European Lifetime Achievement

Wim Wenders

European Achievement in World Cinema

Isabella Rossellini

Eurimages International Co-Production

Labina Mitevska