Special Mention to Milad Alami and Stinna Lassen

The second prize winner Milad Alami had struck the Nordic Talents audience with his 29 minute fiction film Nothing Can Touch Me, featuring a school shooting spree. Just like his graduation film, the director of Iranian origin’s pitching project The Evacuation of Åbyn will be character-driven, focusing on a young girl’s dilemma as she is forced to flee her family and home mining town. The jury issued the following motivation statement: “The Prize is given to a strong creative team with an excellent graduation film that shows a genuine interest in portraying credible characters in a very contemporary context. We believe that The Evacuation of Åbyn has the potential of becoming an original, multi-layered and moving film about finding your true home as the world collapses around you.”

Synopsis: Sarah, 17, lives in an old mining town. When she runs, she forgets about taking care of her brothers and being pushed into her grandfather’s criminal world. One day the ground under her feet trembles, and houses collapse through the fragile ground into the mine below. An evacuation of the town begins, and everything Sarah knows is about to change.

NT11 Jury members: Cecilia Lidin, Documentary Film Commissioner for the Swedish Film Institute, Danish director Lone Scherfig, Finnish director John Webster, and Norwegian Feature Film Commissioner Thomas Robsam and Swedish producer Lars Blomgren.