As is cherished m:brane tradition, a prize of €2,500 was awarded to the best project presentation in “The Noble Art of Pitching” category. Noble can also mean charismatic and energetic, qualities that jury members Prami Larsen (of The Film Workshop in Copenhagen), Film i Skåne commissioner Jeanette Schjerva and Christina M Schollerer (of Germany’s Golden Sparrow Festival) unanimously praised when choosing the winning 2024 project. Medicated, the planned debut feature by 2023 Danish Film School graduate Las Dyhrcrone, is a film showing powerful potential.

“Medicated deals with opiates, and the idea comes straight from friends of mine who’ve become hooked on Oxycodone or Tramadol, substances I really knew very little about,” said the 27-year-old writer-director, whose graduation film, Out of Line, has already piqued attention. “Unlike in the USA, opiates are hardly discussed at all today in Denmark, but they will be soon, and that’s my firm prediction. What also strikes me is the way my generation gets into this drug habit, and possibly also the generation after us. Older generations aimed for a heightened sensual and otherworldly experience of another universe and getting spaced out in general, whereas the young generation today aims to dull down the outside world, and shut themselves off from it and all its pain – it’s the opposite of a dopamine rush. The world outside is just too overwhelming and chaotic. That’s the essence of the film.”

Medicated, produced by Daniel Mühlendorph for Hyæne Film, deals with three young opiate addicts who get their hands on a new substance that allows them to travel back in time to the person they used to be, which triggers some entirely new events. “I’ve called it a sci-fi story with documentary elements, and the feedback I get often involves the phrase ‘magical realism’,” notes Dyhrcrone. “First and last, it’s rooted in our times and our welfare society. It’s a picture of Denmark, now and in the near future.”

A brand-new prize was also handed out, courtesy of the Raoul Wallenberg Institute of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law, whose former director and now affiliated professor Morten Kjærum (see the interview) presented a special certificate to a deserving project. Thus, the pick for the Human Rights & Children’s Rights Under the Microscope Award was Norway’s Forza Oslo, directed by Mats Bjerknes and produced by Jonas Bruun for Storm Films. The film depicts a young hooligan who loses his last remaining parent and has to take on the role of caregiver for his disabled younger brother, forcing him to adapt to a whole new priority in life. Another Norwegian project, Whatever Happened, produced by Arild Halvorsen for Fabelaktiv and still in search of a director, received the Young Horizons Exchange Award.

m:brane manager Lennart Ström (see the interview) can now look back on a successful and gratifying edition with many ambitious projects and over 280 meetings; he can also look forward to the 2025 sessions, which will take place from 11-13 March, with Denmark being the country in focus.

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