Denmark’s Queen of Hearts wins the Dragon Award Best Nordic Film at Göteborg
by Jan Lumholdt
- The movie’s star, Trine Dyrholm, has pocketed the gender-neutral Best Acting Award, with Mia Engberg getting the Audentia Award for Lucky One
The 42nd Göteborg Film Festival, which started on 25 January and wrapped on 4 February, gave out its awards at a gala ceremony on Saturday 3 February.
The top prize, the Dragon Award Best Nordic Film, went to Denmark’s Queen of Hearts [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Gustav Lindh
interview: May el-Toukhy
film profile] by May el-Toukhy. On top of the nice, dragon-shaped trophy, el-Toukhy will also receive SEK 1 million (circa €100,000) – the largest monetary film prize in the world. Among the jury members were Romanian Golden Bear-winning director Adina Pintilie, Danish author Hanne-Vibeke Holst and Brit Nick James, the editor of Sight & Sound.
Trine Dyrholm, the undisputable star of el-Toukhy’s sophomore feature, deservedly won the Dragon Award Best Acting, a gender-neutral prize, given out for the first time this year. In Queen of Hearts, the ever-durable and fearless Dyrholm plays a successful lawyer with a perfect and harmonious family life who embarks on a highly risky and even more inappropriate affair with her far-too-young stepson. The Danish-Swedish co-production, which was also playing at Sundance and Rotterdam, won the Audience Dragon Award Best Nordic Film and seems set for a very rich and fruitful 2019 run.
Göteborg was also this year’s host of the Audentia Award, instigated by Eurimages in 2016 and since then handed out at Istanbul, Locarno and Toronto. The award, given to a female director in order to promote gender equality in the European film industry, went to Sweden’s Mia Engberg for the very well-received Lucky One [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Mia Engberg
film profile].
In fact, all of the major Nordic and European winners at the festival were female. Anna Eborn got the Dragon Award Best Nordic Documentary, together with the prize of SEK 250,000 (circa €25,000) for Transnistra [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile]. María Alché’s A Family Submerged [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] won the Ingmar Bergman International Debut Award, and the Sven Nykvist Cinematography Award was presented to cinematographer Ita Zbroniec-Zajt for Ridge. The FIPRESCI Award went to the Norwegian title Blind Spot [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Tuva Novotny
film profile] by Tuva Novotny, the very successful actress who has more or less simultaneously managed to make a double directorial debut, also helming Britt-Marie Was Here [+see also:
trailer
film profile], another film on show at Göteborg this year.
Here is the full list of award winners:
Dragon Award Best Nordic Film
Queen of Hearts [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Gustav Lindh
interview: May el-Toukhy
film profile] - May el-Toukhy (Denmark/Sweden)
Dragon Award Best Acting
Trine Dyrholm – Queen of Hearts
Dragon Award Best Nordic Documentary
Transnistra [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] - Anna Eborn (Sweden/Denmark/Belgium)
FIPRESCI Award
Blind Spot [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Tuva Novotny
film profile] - Tuva Novotny (Norway)
The Sven Nykvist Cinematography Award
Ita Zbroniec-Zajt - Ridge (Sweden)
Audience Dragon Award Best Nordic Film
Queen of Hearts - May el-Toukhy
Dragon Award Best International Film
Giant Little Ones - Keith Behrman (Canada)
The Ingmar Bergman International Debut Award
A Family Submerged [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] - María Alche (Argentina/Norway/Germany/Brazil)
Dragon Award Best Swedish Short
Who Talks - Elin Övergaard
Audience Choice Award for Best Swedish Short
Sorry Not Sorry - Julia Thelin
Angelo Award
The Unpromised Land [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] - Victor Lindgren (Sweden)
The Mai Zetterling Grant
Marcus Lindeen
The Håkon Liu Grant
Gabriela Pichler
The Bonnie Grant
Jimmy Olsson
Nordic Film & TV Fund Prize
Mika Ronkainen and Merja Aakko - All the Sins
Nordic Honorary Dragon Award
Mads Mikkelsen
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