Amanda Kernell’s Brace Your Heart claimed two awards. Joik musical Árru and documentary Let Our Mountains Live were the other Sámi winners.
Kasper Kalle’s No Rest for the Wicked (Denmark/Faroe Islands/Iceland) won the €12,500 NDR Film Prize at the 68th Nordic Film Days Lübeck. The prizes were handed out at Theater Lübeck on 7 November, with eleven cash awards worth a combined €70,000.
Sámi cinema enjoyed a strong showing. Amanda Kernell’s Brace Your Heart (Garrat du váimmu – Gör hjärtat hårt, Sweden/Norway/Iceland/Bulgaria) scooped the €7,500 Audience Prize and the €5,000 INTERFILM Church Film Prize. Elle Sofe Sara’s Árru (Norway/Sweden/Finland) secured the €5,000 Baltic Film Prize, whilst Håvard Bustnes’s Let Our Mountains Live (La fjella leve, Norway/Finland) took the €5,000 Documentary Prize.
Meanwhile, Mads Mengel’s Danish feature The Guest (Gæsten) received the €7,500 Best Feature Debut award. The €5,000 prize for Best Nordic and Baltic Short Film went to Niki Lindroth von Bahr’s The End (Sweden/France/Denmark), with Arnas Balčiūnas’s Class Photo earning a special mention.
In the Young Audience strand, Silje Evensmo Jacobsen’s Norwegian pic The Mystery Package (Mysteriepakken) won the Children’s Jury Prize, while Morten, by Estonia’s Ivan Pavljutškov, snagged the Youth Jury Prize. Cecilia Verheyden’s Skiff claimed the Children’s and Youth Film Prize.
The festival’s non-monetary Honorary Prize was presented to Anne Lajla Utsi, Director of the International Sámi Film Institute, on opening night. Running from 4–8 November, this year’s edition offered 186 films and 243 public events.
Full list of award winners:
The winning titles No Rest for the Wicked, Brace Your Heart, Árru and The Mystery Package are top-financed by Nordisk Film & TV Fond.
The head of the International Sámi Film Institute talks about boosting indigenous filmmaking through smart collaborations with Netflix, Disney, NRK, Telefilm Canada and more - and she reveals what’s next for Sámi filmmakers.
As the main actors live within the Sámi reindeer community, they needed time to accept their roles as many had other tings to do than to act: namely to tender reindeers.
Mother Creature and No Rest for the Wicked claim top honours at NIFF’s 10th edition, which also launches a new filmmakers platform linking Greenland, the Faroe Islands and Iceland.
