09/02/2010

The Danish prison drama R by first-time directors Michael Noer and Tobias Lindholm, scooped the Dragon Award for Best Nordic Film and the FIPRESCI Prize at the Göteborg International Film Festival (GIFF) that ended this weekend.

The Dragon Award jury – comprising Swedish filmmaker Johan Jonason, Norwegian author Erlend Loe, Icelandic filmmaker Ásdís Thoroddsen, Finnish Export Manager Kirsi Tykkyläinen and Danish producer Vibeke Windeløv – said about R: “In the film, we are introduced to a world, which is a part of and apart from our society, a hierarchy within a hierarchy, a machine where the fate of the individual has no importance. Its harsh unsentimentality goes close to the borderline of pain, and emphasizes the rigidity of the prison system.”

Produced by Nordisk Film Production with support from the Danish Film Institute’s New Danish Screen, world sales on the film are handled by TrustNordisk.

Margreth Olin’s Norwegian drama The Angel [+see also:
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film profile] the Church of Sweden Award, ahead of its screening in the Berlinale’s Generation 14+ sidebar. The jury said: “Sebbe is a varied drama about a single mother and her son in a Sweden scarred by an age of widespread poverty, and where impotence and explosive desperation make extreme demands on the survival instincts of the individual.”

Dutch film Can Go Through Skin [+see also:
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film profile] by Esther Rots was given the Ingmar Bergman Debut Award; Danish cinematographer Rasmus Videbæk won the Kodak Nordic Vision Award for his work on the Icelandic film The Good Heart [+see also:
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film profile]; and Swedish producer Kristina Åberg (Atmo) received the Lorens Award for animated drama Metropia.

The 33rd GIFF sold a record 130,400 tickets (up 5% on 2009) for 720 screenings of 450 films from 78 different countries.