Iceland’s up-and-coming director was handed out the award at the Northern Film Festival in Leeuwarden, Freisland, the European Capital of Culture for her debut feature And Breathe Normally. The film produced by Zik Zak Filmworks has now won 10 international awards since its world premiere at Sundance last January. 

More than 170 films screened at the 39th Leeuwarden film festival between November 5-11. The Audience award was handed out to the Finnish black metal comedy Heavy Trip by Jukka Vidgren and Juuso Laatio.

The audience’s second favourite film was Pernille Fischer Christensen’s Becoming Astrid, followed by Gustav Möller’s The Guilty. 

Norwegian directors in attendance were Henrik Martin Dahlsbakken, with the films Going West and An Affair, Sofia Haugan with her documentary My Heart Belongs to Daddy, and Aril Østin Ommundsen with his sixth feature Now It’s Dark. 

The centenary of Ingmar Bergman was celebrated with the screenings of Wild Strawberries, Fanny & Alexander, The Seventh Seal, A Virgin Spring, Shame, A Lesson in Love, the new documentaries Bergman-A Year in a Life and Searching for Ingmar Bergman, and short film selection Bergman Revisited.

The festival closed last Sunday with the screening of Laugh or Die by Finnish director Heikki Kujanpää.