29/10/2013 - Norwegian director Margreth Olin, whose latest documentary Nowhere Home won the Amanda, is honoured for her contribution to Norwegian film culture

Norwegian director Margreth Olin (photo) is the recipient of this year’s €12,500 Arne Skouen Award, which honours a Norwegian filmmaker for “a significant and special effort in Norwegian film culture,” and is given by the Norwegian Film Institute, local exhibitor Oslo Kino and distributor SF Norge.

“Olin is a brave, strong and clear voice in the Norwegian society and media landscape - she is well known for her social commitment and always lends her voice to the weak, in countless newspaper articles, lectures and films. She carries on the work of Skouen to be a worthy recipient of the prize,” said the jury.

Her first full-length documentary, The House of Angels (1998), won her an Amanda – Norway’s national film prize – and since then she has been a regular Amanda consumer, for My Body (2003), The Angel [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (2010 – the Audience Award), and most recently Nowhere Home [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (2012), about the victims of a new legislation imposed by the Norwegian government to restrict immigration.

Skouen’s honorary prize was awarded for the 11^th time – previous winners include Norwegian directors Erik Poppe, Jens Lien, Odd Geir Sæther and Sara Johnsen – and this year as part of the celebrations of the director’s 100^th anniversary, which also includes the launch of a DVD box and the screening in autumn at Oslo’s Cinemateket of 16 of his 17 films (he himself denounced Child of the Sun (1955), which the institute has respected, according to editor Jan Erik Holst, of the Norwegian Film Institute).