04/02/2008

Tomas Alfredson’s Let the Right One In won two major awards at the 31st Göteborg International Film Festival, which ended last Saturday. The stylish vampire title picked the Film Dragon (or Nordic Film Prize) and the Kodak Nordic Vision Award for Best Cinematography (Hoyte van Hoytema).

Go With Peace Jamil [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Meta Louise Foldager
interview: Omar Shargawi
film profile], the directorial debut of Danish/Palestinian filmmaker Omar Sharwagi, won the FIPRESCI Award and Swedish Church Award. The story of an Arab in Copenhagen who must settle his debts simultaneously won over the jury of the Rotterdam International Film Festival", which gave it one of three VRPO Tiger Awards for “its strong directing and acting work.” The film produced by Zentropa as part of the Danish Film Institute’s New Danish Screen is sold by Trust/Nordisk.

Other winners at Göteborg included Spanish filmmaker Jaime Rosales’ Solitary Fragments [+see also:
trailer
film profile], whose prestigious Ingmar Bergman International Debut Award came right before yesterday’s top honours at the Goyas (see news).

Swedish producer Fredrik Heinig won the new Lorens Producer Award for his work on Johan Kling’s Darling [+see also:
trailer
film profile] and Swedish filmmaker Patrik Eklund’s Abrakadabra was awarded Best Short Film by a jury and audiences.

Göteborg had another record-breaking year with 124,000 tickets sold for around 750 screenings of over 450 films from 67 countries. The most attended event was Gael Garcia Bernal’s masterclass, which attracted 600 participants, and the most popular films included Ang Lee’s Lust, Caution, Todd Haynes’ I’m Not There and Jens Jonsson’s The King of Ping Pong [+see also:
trailer
film profile].