Tea Lindeburg was handed out a Silver Shell for Best Director, while 16-year-old Flora Ofelia Hofmann Lindahl shared the Best Leading Performance prize with Jessica Chastain.

Debut female talents won big at the 69th San Sebastian International Film Festival which closed on Saturday, as the top Golden Shell award went to Romanian filmmaker Alina Grigore for Blue Moon, and Tea Lindeburg was crowned Best Director for her first feature film As in Heaven.

A graduate from New York University and the Danish Super16 film school, Lindeburg is the creator of the Prix Italia 2017 nominated Netflix series Equinox, which was based on her own podcast series.

With her feature debut As in Heaven (Du som er i himlen) based on Marie Bregendah’s 1912 novel ‘A Night of Dying’, the director turned to a coming-of-age story set in the late 1800s, in one location and unfolding over one night.

Flora Ofelia Hofmann Lindahl won over San Sebastian jury members with her harrowing performance as Lise, the eldest of a large family whose hope to get an education are crushed when her mother’s delivery of her 9th child suddenly goes wrong.

Lindahl’s shared acting prize in Spain with Hollywood actress Jessica Chastain (for The Eyes of Tammy Faye) was the second remarkable achievement for the Danish teenager who picked up earlier this year a national Robert award-Best Female Prize in a TV series for DR series Cry Wolf.

As in Heaven was the first feature film produced by the fast-expanding outfit Motor, headed by producer Jesper Morthorst and screenwriter Christian Torpe.

After its screening at Toronto and San Sebastian, the film will travel to the Busan, London and Hamburg film festivals.

LevelK handles global sales. "The film is receiving fantastic feedback from buyers across continents, and we are in negotiations for specific countries and receiving offers from others," told the company's CEO Tine Klint to nordicfilmandtvnews.com.

Scanbox will release it in Denmark January 6, 2022.