Juho Kuosmanen’s debut feature The Happiest Day in the Life of Olli Mäki (Hymyilevä Mies) supported by Nordisk Film & TV Fond wins the Un Certain Regard Prize in Cannes. 

This is the second consecutive year that a Nordic film collects the top award from the Cannes official selection sidebar, after Iceland’s Rams in 2015. 

In his acceptance speak, Kuosmanen said: “Thank you for your weird taste in cinema…I’m so surprised and happy.” The Finnish film received rave reviews from several leading trade magazines such as Variety that tipped it as a potential frontrunner for the foreign language Oscars’ race 2017. 

The film produced by Aamu Filmcompany in co-production with SF Studios will open domestically on September 2, 2016 via B-Plan. Les Films du Losange handles world sales. 

In the main competition section, Nicolas Winding Refn’s horror pic The Neon Demon succeeded in creating controversy in Cannes but failed to convince the jury that gave the Palme d’or to veteran British director Ken Loach for I, Daniel Blake. The social drama will be released in Scandinavia by Scanbox. 

Two Nordic co-productions introduced at the Directors’ Fortnight picked up major awards:

The Danish/French/Swedish/Afghani Wolf and Sheep by Afghan emerging director Shahrbanoo Sadat won the section’s top Art Cinema Award while The French/Icelandic film The Together Project by Solveig Anspach picked up the SACD Award given to a French-language film.