19/11/2012 - Cate Shortland’s historical drama wins Best Film, Best Actress, Best Cinematography, and Best Soundtrack at the Swedish film festival

Cate Shortland’s Lore, a German-Australian production, is the grand winner at the 23rd edition of the Stockholm Film Festival, where it took away Best Film, Best Actress (Saskia Rosendahl), Best Cinematography (Adam Arkapaw), and Best Soundtrack (Max Richter). The jury, presided by Peter Fonda, chose the title set in post-war Germany for being “ a coming of age story that is beautiful and brave and transfers its audience to a time and place that we have all known many times before. Only this time the perspective is different. A historical drama with timeless brilliance.” The film previously won the Audience Award at the Locarno Film Festival and Best New Director in Valladolid, as well as the honour of being selected by Australia as its candidate for the next Oscar for best film in a foreign language.

As for Best Directorial Debut, it went to an American production, Benh Zeitlin’s Beasts of the Southern Wild, “for achieving a sense of naturalism in a fantastic universe and grabbing hold of his audience and never letting them go. For his belief in humanity in a cinematic landscape that so often cannot pull itself out of the mire of misanthropy.” This recognition comes at the end of a long list of awards, including some from festivals as prestigious as Cannes, Sundance, and Deauville.

Other winners at this edition of the Stockholm Film Festival include Andrew Dominik, who won Best Screenplay for Killing Them Softly, Tim Roth, who received Best Actor for Broken, Michael Winterbottom, who was awarded the FIPRESCI Prize for Everyday, Mikael Marcimain, who took away the Audience Award for Call Girl, and Shawn Christensen, who won Best Short.

The Swedish festival also awarded American actor Willem Dafoe, French director Jaques Audiard, and veteran Swedish filmmaker Jan Troell for their careers.