THOMAS VINTERBERG’S “Another Round” was the big winner at the 33rd European Film Awards, taking best film, best director, and best actor for star Mads Mikkelsen who plays a day-drinking high school teacher in the Danish crowd-pleasing dramedy.

Vinterberg also won best screenplay for the feature, an honor he shared with co-writer Tobias Lindholm.

“This film was made in the most difficult time of my life,” said Vinterberg, referring to the tragic death of his daughter Ida in a car accident shortly after shooting on “Another Round” began. “It could only have been made with my friends and my family beside me.”

Mikkelsen, accepting his prize for best actor, dedicated it to Ida’s memory. “She shines in every frame of this film,” he said.

“She died during the making of the project. She was supposed to be a part of it. It was shot at her school, in her classroom,” Vinterberg said, accepting the best film honor, adding that it only made sense to dedicate the award to her, as he has already done with the film itself.

“Another Round,” which has been a box office hit at home, where it was released in-between the first and second COVID-19 lockdown, is Denmark’s entry for the 2021 Oscars in the best international feature category and is considered a front-runner.

The 33rd European Film Awards were handed out via a virtual ceremony from Berlin on Saturday.

The best actress honor when to Paula Beer for the titular role in Christian Petzold’s love story “Undine,” a variation on the myth of water nymph Undine, who must kill every lover who leaves her.

Best European documentary went to Alexander Nanau for “Collective,” a furious look at hospital corruption in Romania, which is also an inside look at investigative journalism.

The European Discovery — Prix Fipresci for a work by a first-time director, went to Italian filmmaker Carlo Sironi for his debut “Sole,” a hard-hitting drama about a pregnant woman from Eastern Europe who comes to Italy to sell her unborn child.

Irish director and film historian Marc Cousins won the inaugural EFA Award for Innovative Storytelling for his groundbreaking, 14-hour documentary “Women Make Films.”

“Hidden Away,” Giorgio Diritti’s portrait of self-taught Italian painter Antonio Ligabue, won European Film honors for best cinematography (for cameraman Matteo Cocco) and for Ursula Patzak for best costume design. Dascha Dauenhauer won best original score for her soundtrack to Burhan Qurbani’s “Berlin Alexanderplatz,” a modern-day adaptation of Alfred Doblin’s 1929 literary classic.

“The Platform,” a dystopian drama, that Netflix picked up worldwide, won the European Film Prize for best visual effects for Inaki Madariaga.

Other winners included Cristina Casali, who took best production design for his work on Armando Iannucci’s “The Personal History of David Copperfield,” best editor winner Maria Fantastica Valmori for war documentary  “Il Varco — Once More Unto the Breach.”

For the first time this year, the European Film Awards were presented online, part of a weeklong series of virtual events leading up to Saturday’s virtual gala. This year’s nominees, dozens of them, were connected via video link.

A highlight was an unexpected video from German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who sent a message thanking outgoing European Film Academy President Wim Wenders and EFA Director Marion Doring. Polish director Agnieszka Holland and the former director of the Berlinale’s European Film Market Matthijs Wouter Knol will take over from Wenders and Doring next year.

(SD-Agencies)