This year’s Sundance Film Festival saw an historic number of wins for Norwegian films at a major festival, with A New Kind of Wilderness and Ibelin receiving top prizes and Handling the Undead winning the award for best score.

Six Nordic films were selected for this year’s Sundance Film Festival, including three minority co-productions. A record number of four prizes were awarded the three Norwegian majority produced films.

With two Norwegian films in the World Cinema Documentary Competition, both received top prizes. Director Silje Evensmo Jacobsen’s A New Kind of Wilderness (Ukjent landskap) was awarded the Grand Jury Prize for best film, while Benjamin Ree’s Ibelin won both the Directing Award and the Audience Award.

In the World Cinema Dramatic Competition, Norwegian director Thea Hvistendahl‘s Handling the Undead (Håndtering av udøde) received the award for best score (Special Jury Award for Original Music), by British composer Peter Raeburn. The film is based on the zombie novel by Swedish writer John Ajvide Lindqvist, who also co-wrote the script with Hvistendahl. Handling the Undead is produced by Norwegian production company Einar Film, in co-production with Zentropa Sweden, Nordisk Film Denmark, and Greece’s Filmiki Productions. The film has received support from Nordisk Film & TV Fond.

In addition, Indian writer/director/producer Shuchi Talati’s Girls Will be Girls, which was co-produced by Norway’s Hummelfilm, won the Special Jury Award for Acting (to actress Preeti Panigrahi) and the Audience Award, also in the World Cinema Dramatic Competition.

Evensmo Jacobsen’s Grand Jury Prize winner A New Kind of Wilderness depicts a family living an isolated lifestyle in a forest in Norway, in an attempt to be wild and free. When a tragic event changes everything, they are forced to adjust to modern society. The documentary is produced by A5 Film for NRK, DR and SVT.

“Our jury was immersed in this story from start to finish. The film is embedded with deep humanism and a sensitivity and vulnerability that never veers into sentimentalism. The film is skillfully edited, beautifully filmed, and scored with intimate access inside a very special family. It’s rare to see classically vérité films of this caliber,” the jury citation states.

Ree’s Ibelin tells the story of Mats Steen, a Norwegian gamer who died of a degenerative muscular disease at the age of 25. His parents mourned what they thought had been a lonely and isolated life, when they started receiving messages from online friends around the world. The film recreates the rich life of Mats' avatar Ibelin in the gaming world of World of Warcraft. Ibelin is produced by Medieoperatørene, and was acquired by Netflix earlier during the festival.

The jury citation reads: “The director found a powerful form to fit the story, excavating a wondrous and enchanting secret life with real skill, to give us deep insight into the mind of the main character, opening up a world that was previously locked away. We love the film’s playful inventiveness, its emotion, and depth.”

A New Kind of Wilderness director Silje Evensmo Jacobsen and producer Mari Bakke Riise, Ibelin director Benjamin Ree and producer Ingvil Giske, as well as Mats Steen’s parents, Trude and Robert Steen, were present at the awards ceremony on January 26 in Park City, Utah.

“Norwegian documentary film is in a golden age. The quality is world-class, and the fact that both A New Kind of Wilderness and Ibelin won awards at Sundance is testament to this,” Norwegian Film Institute director Kjersti Mo says in a press release.

In addition to the Indian/French/Norwegian Girls Will be Girls, two other Nordic co-productions were selected for Sundance’s 10-title World Cinema Dramatic Competition. The majority UK production Sebastian by London-based Finnish writer/director Mikko Mäkela is co-produced by Belgium and Finland’s Helsinki-filmi, while Chinese writer/director Jianjie Lin’s Brief History of a Family is the first official co-production between China (First Light Films) and Denmark (Tambo Film), and is also co-produced with France and Qatar.