I have mixed emotions regarding last Saturday’s European Film Awards, broadcast live on TVM2. A pleasant evening but three things were irritating and offensive.

Firstly, I don’t think that I ever viewed an Academy Award ceremony where not one, but two ministers make a speech. Imagine the US president or a senator delivering a speech at the Oscars. Yet this tiny island manages to start the show with two politicians scoring points at European and national level. I wonder how this works. We shall finance this from the taxpayers’ money as long as we get part of the show?

Secondly, I found the host and presenter, German comedian Anke Engelke, talented and quite entertaining. I did not mind the reference to actresses as being f****** whores. I understood the context and reference and did not think the foul language was offensive. But the same presenter went way too far when she shouted the same ‘f-word’ in a three-line phrase in-between the names of Jesus and Christ. She should have shown some respect to the host nation. At this point I was expecting the honourable ministers to rise and leave the show. Or are we trying to appease Europe to the point of throwing away our Christian heritage? On several occasions, Anke referred to the venue as the Sacra Infermeria. I wonder if she understood the meaning of “sacra”.

Finally, when receiving his deserved award, Austrian film director Michael Haneke decided to deliver his speech in German. He was assisted by an interpreter but just kept rambling on in German, not giving the interpreter time to translate his speech. When he finally stopped, the poor girl was overwhelmed by the amount of information she was supposed to have memorised and obviously left quite a bit out. When Haneke went up for his second award, he rudely turned his back on the interpreter and made his – this time – brief speech in English. The courageous interpreter spontaneously did her job again by translating from English to German, totally belittling the director. The host should have awarded one of those statuettes to her.

Another well-deserved statuette would go to the Maltese band Brikkuni. I totally enjoyed their artistic performance and the fresh approach to the continuity of the show.

All in all, this was an entertaining evening, even though a far cry from the Oscars and US films the European Film Academy was trying to belittle. Despite the unnecessary blasphemy, I believe the evening was a good showcase for Malta, but I expect I would be expecting too much in asking the same honourable ministers to tell us how much this show cost us taxpayers?

Mark Gatt

Qawra