The Nordisk Film Award, which was announced Tuesday November 6, consists of DKK 1,000 multiplied with the age of Nordisk Film - has been given every year since 1996 to one or more persons who have contributed in an extraordinary way to the Danish media environment. Last year's winner was the Danish director/cartoonist Anders Morgenthaler.
The 2007 Nordisk Film Award was given to Fog by Poul Nesgaard, principal at the Danish Film School, and Peter Schepelern, lecturer in Film and Media Science at the University of Copenhagen. Both are members of the Nordisk Film Award committee with producer Birgitte Hald (Nimbus Film), Nordisk's managing director Michael Ritto and Rumle Hammerich, producer and director.
"Fog has a special ability to localize a heart-rending story about the harsh conditions of life," commented the Award committee. "Dreyer once said; ‘The big dramas take place in quiet'. In The Art of Crying, the voice is never raised, even with incest, an arson which causes the loss of life, three funerals and a half-hearted suicide."
Another award was handed out on November 6 to Danish cinematographer Dan Laustsen (Just Another Love Story, Night Watch): the newly established Erik Balling travel grant of DKK 50,000. "It might seem a little superfluous to give Dan Laustsen a travel grant, as he is a photographer who obviously gets to travel a lot. But the travel grant is to be interpreted as an invitation to go home, because it is here that Dan has played an important part for almost 30 years," noted the Award committee.