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The live stream of the European Film Awards from Berlin this evening was pretty spotty, but a few fine moments came through, particularly the moment when a special honorary award was inaugurated and presented to a very surprised Michel Piccoli by Volker Schlöndorff and Bruno Ganz.

Another special award was given to producer Mariela Besuievski, Stellan Skarsgård presented the European Achievement in World Cinema Award to Mads Mikkelsen, and Stephen Frears received this year's Lifetime Achievement Award.

The full list of winners and nominees:

European Film 2011: Melancholia, Denmark/Sweden/France/Germany

Written and Directed by Lars von Trier

Produced by Meta Louise Foldager and Louise Vesth.

Also nominated:

The Artist, France

Written and Directed by Michel Hazanavicius

Produced by Thomas Langmann and Emmanuel Montamat

Le Gamin au Velo (The Kid with a Bike), Belgium/France/Italy

Written and Directed by Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne

Produced by Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne,...

Melancholia, The Artist, Le Havre and the other nominations for the 2011 European Film Awards have been announced. The 24th Annual European Film Awards are presented “by the European Film Academy to recognize excellence in European cinematic achievements. The awards are given in over ten categories of which the most important is the Film of the year. They are restricted to European cinema and European producers, directors, and actors.” This year’s European Film Awards “ceremony will be held on December 3, 2011 in Berlin’s Tempodrom near Potsdamer Platz.”

The full listing of the 2011 European Film Awards nominations is below.

European Film 2011

The Artist, France

Written and Directed by: Michel Hazanavicius; Produced by: Thomas Langmann & Emmanuel Montamat

Le Gamin au Velo (The Kid with a Bike), Belgium/France/Italy

Written and Directed by: Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne; Produced by: Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne, Denis Freyd & Andrea Occhipinti

Hævnen (In a Better World), Denmark...

Kudos to the AFI Fest for setting up an important sidebar that will expose the best that the next generation of filmmakers have to offer. Bumping up their crop of exciting new auteur cinema, sections labeled "Young Americans" and "New Auteurs" (Cannes heavy) are showcases you'll want to keep an eye on - I can vouch on a good chunk of titles already selected. Among the half dozen included names in "Young Americans" section we find a pair of filmmakers in Alistair Banks Griffin and David Robert Mitchell who were included in our own American New Wave 25 feature this summer. Two Gates Of Sleep, one of my top discoveries of the year from this year's Cannes will finally receive its North American premiere. Filling out the section, we also have the North American premiere for the Locarno preemed Kitao Sakurai's Aardvark (Sakurai was the cinematographer on You Wont Miss...

Madrid -- Fifteen films from 17 countries including the United States, Romania, China, Chile and Denmark will contend for the €90,000 ($120,000) Zabaltegi-New Directors Award at next month's San Sebastian International Film Festival, organizers announced on Monday.

Representing the U.S. will be debutante director Shawn Ku's "Beautiful Boy" starring Maria Bello and Michael Sheen as the parents of a youth who carries out a mass shooting at a university.

Two films from host country Spain are also in the lineup: "Blog", by Elena Trape, about a group of upper middle-class girls with a secret plan, and "Stars to Wish Upon", by Mikel Rueda, which tells the story of a mother who loses her child in the Spanish Civil War.

Other western European productions include France's "Elsewhere" by Frederic Pelle; the Belgian-German co-production "Marieke, Marieke", by Sophie Schoukens; "Dusk", by Dutch director Hanro Smitsman, and from Denmark, Mikkel Munch-Fals' "Nothing's All Bad.