The 2006 Eagle Awards ceremony, which took place in Warsaw yesterday evening, did not bring any surprises. The most important awards in Polish cinema went to the two films most appreciated by critics and festival juries, as well as by audiences.

Six Eagle statuettes (out of eight nominations) were awarded to The Collector [trailer] (Komornik) by Feliks Falk, for Best Film, Best Director, Best Actor (Andrzej Chyra), Best Actress (Kinga Preis), Best Screenplay (Grzegorz Łoszewski) and Best Costume Design (Anna Wunderlich). Falk also received an Audience Award from cinemagoers who voted for him over the Internet.
The second biggest prize winner of the evening was Persona non grata by Krzysztof Zanussi, for which the room broke into applause no less than four times to award the film an Eagle for Best Sound (Wiesław Znyk, Jacek Kuśmierczyk), Best Editing (Wanda Zeman), Best Music (Wojciech Kilar) and Best Supporting Actor (Jerzy Stuhr).

Following in the footsteps of Has, Wajda, Różewicz, Konwicki, Polański, Kutz and Kawalerowicz, it was director Jerzy Hoffman’s turn to receive an Honorary Eagle. Hoffman became famous in particular for his trilogy (written by Henryk Sienkiewicz) Colonel Wolodyjowski, The Deluge and With Fire and Sword. “Hoffman used the best of Polish culture to put it in the present and the future,” summed up Kazimierz Ujazdowski, the Polish Cultural Minister.

In the Best European Film category, the Eagle went to My Summer of Love [trailer, film focus] by Paweł Pawlikowski, who beat out Knofilikari by Czechoslovakia’s Peter Zelenka and Kontroll [trailer] by Hungarian director Nimrod Antal.

The Eagle (Orły in Polish) has been awarded since 1999 by the Polish Film Academy, which has over 500 members. Among the winners this year were 18 films that had been in theatres for at least one week.