06/11/2007

Last Sunday, during the closing night ceremony of the 49th Nordic Film Days Lübeck in Germany, Norwegian filmmaker Bård Breien was awarded the €12,500 NDR Film Prize for his directorial debut The Art of Negative Thinking [+see also:
trailer
film profile].

The jury stated that it presented the prize to Breien’s film because it “treats the topic of disabilities in a relentless, consequent and radically witty manner. In doing so it never once becomes denunciatory. It has a wonderful, liberating effect on the audience to see authentic figures both with disabilities and without reveal their guilt-ridden selves. A great directing achievement by debut filmmaker Bård Breien, who also wrote the script.”

The film was produced by Dag Alveberg for Maipo Film & TV. Nordisk Film is handling world sales.

Sweden’s Suddenly [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by Johan Brisinger won the Audience Award, To Love Someone by Åke Sandgren the Baltic Film Prize for a Nordic Feature Film and the Interfilm Church Prize, and Petter Næss’ Leaps and Bounds [+see also:
trailer
film profile] the Children’s and Youth Film Prize of the Nordic Film Institutes.

Finland’s Asylum by Jenni Linko won the Documentary Film Prize of the Lübeck Trade Unions and Raimo O Niemi’s Mystery of the Wolf [+see also:
trailer
film profile] the Prize of the Children’s Jury.

The Nordic Film Days Lübeck is one of the biggest windows for Nordic films outside the Nordic region, with the Festival du Cinéma nordique de Rouen in France. A total of 127 feature length films, short films, and documentaries from Scandinavia were shown during the five-day event.

Co-artistic director Linde Frölich, who viewed over 356 films for the festival, said that creativity in the Nordic region is at its highest level with more films of better quality available.