Last Saturday two Scandi films and a Danish co-production took home some of Sundance top awards.

The Danish film Last Men in Aleppo that scooped the World Cinema Grand Jury Prize in the Documentary programme was supported by Nordisk Film & TV Fond. The film about the human cost of war in Syria and the volunteering group The White Helmets was directed by Feras Fayyad, with co-director/editor Steen Johannessen.

The film was produced by Larm Film in collaboration with the Aleppo Media Centre. DR Sales handle world sales outside of North America, handled by Cinetic Media.

The Swedish drama The Nile Hilton Incident directed by Tarik Saleh earned the World Cinema Grand Jury Prize in the Dramatic programme.  The political thriller set in Cairo weeks before the Arab Spring in 2011, was produced by Sweden’s ATMO, in co-production with Denmark’s Final Cut for Real. The Match Factory handles sales. The Swedish theatrical release via Scanbox is set for the fall 2017.

Final Cut for Real also co-produced the US documentary Strong Island by Yance Ford that picked up the U.S. Documentary Special Jury Award for Storytelling. In the film, the director examines the violent death of his brother and the judicial system that allowed his killer -a white mechanic- to go free.

During the awards-ceremony, the directors took advantage of being on centre stage to deliver a political speech. According to the Sundance festival’s live reporting, Feras Fayyad said: “We are Syrian. We are not ashamed. We do our best to fight for the freedom of speech, for humanity, for justice. We do our best to change for the best. I trust the people in the U.S. can change, and fight like we fight.“

Citing an anecdote, Saleh said he had forgotten his passport in L.A. and was worried he wouldn’t make it through the security to go back to Sundance’s awards ceremony, but the security officer said he would ‘make sure he would be on that plane’. 'It’s not the majority that voted for him, I’m just going to say that,’ added Saleh.

Mentioning the new US anti-immigration laws, Yance Ford said: “When we leave this place [Sundance] we must interfere, disrupt, and prevent our nation from folding in on itself. We must stand as pillars of fire in the darkness.”

A total of 119 feature-length and 68 short films, selected from 13,782 submissions were showcased in the major US festival in Park City, Utah, founded in 1981 by Robert Redford.