EUROPEANS SCOOP ACTING OSCARS

Europeans have taken home all the acting Oscars this year, while the Coen brothers’ film No Country for Old Men was the big winner at the 80th Academy Awards, held on Sunday in Hollywood.

British/Irish front runner Daniel Day-Lewis won the best actor in a leading role statue for There Will Be Blood, while France’s Marion Cotillard’s inspired performance as Edith Piaf saw her win best actress in a leading role for La Vie en Rose.

This was Day-Lewis’ second Oscar – he previously won an Academy Award for 1989’s My Left Foot.

Spain’s Javier Bardem (No Country for Old Men) and the British Tilda Swinton (Michael Clayton) scored the supporting role gongs. Bardem was the first Spanish actor to be nominated for an Academy Award for his role as the gay poet Reinaldo Arenas in 2001’s Before Night Falls.

Ethan Coen and Joel Coen’s No Country for Old Men – about three men whose lives intersect in West Texas after a drug deal goes wrong – was the leader in the award-count, with four statues, including best motion picture of the year.

The writing and directing duo also took home awards for achievement in directing and best adapted screenplay.

Freeheld, a documentary about a dying lesbian police officer’s fight for the right to transfer her pension to her partner, was the winner of the best documentary short subject Oscar.

Ratatouille won best animated feature film of the year, while dark comedy Juno was awarded a statue for best original screenplay, written by Diablo Cody.

There’s been criticism for France not submitting La Vie en Rose as its official entry for best foreign language film which is sure to be intensified following Cotillard’s acting win. Instead, Austria’s The Counterfeiters won this honour.