Dag Johan Haugerud’s Sex and Thea Hvistendahl’s Handling the Undead both took home four prizes at the Amanda Awards, while Ibelin by Benjamin Ree won the award for Best Film.
With four awards each, Sex by Dag Johan Haugerud and Handling the Undead (Håndtering av udøde) by Thea Hvistendahl were the biggest winners at the 40th Norwegian Amanda Awards. The ceremony took place in the Festiviteten Concert Hall on Friday 23 August as part of the Norwegian International Film Festival in Haugesund, and was aired by Norwegian broadcaster NRK.
It was also a big night for documentaries, with Benjamin Ree’s Ibelin winning the top award for Best Film. In addition, the film took the award for Best Editing (by Robert Stengård). Ibelin premiered earlier this year in the Sundance’s World Cinema Documentary Competition, where it won the Directing Award as well as the Audience Award. Ree also won the Amanda Award for Best Film three years ago for his previous doc The Artist and the Thief (Kunstneren og tyven) (also with Stengård winning the Editing Award).
Haugerud won the awards for both Best Director and Best Screenplay for Sex, which premiered in the Panorama section at this year’s Berlinale. Furthermore, Jan Gunnar Røise took the award for Best Actor in a Leading Role, and Siri Forberg was awarded Best Actor in a Supporting Role, both for their parts in Haugerud’s film.
Starting this year, the Amanda awards for actors are gender-neutral. Also introduced in this edition was a new acting category for Best Breakthrough Performance. The newcomer prize was awarded to Kriti Surjan Thepade for her role in Listen Up! (Hør her’a!), directed by Kaveh Tehrani. The comedy drama also won the award for Best Children’s Film.
Hvistendahl’s horror drama Handling the Undead, which also premiered at Sundance (where it won the Special Jury Award for Original Music), received the same number of prizes as Sex. This John Ajvide Lindqvist adaptation took the awards for Best Cinematography (Pål Ulvik Rokseth), Best Sound Design (Bent Holm and Andreas Franck), Best Make-up (Live Becker Knudsen and Morten Jacobsen) and Best Production Design/Scenography (Linda Jansson).
The award for Best Documentary went to Silje Evensmo Jacobsen’s A New Kind of Wilderness (Ukjent landskap). The observational documentary won the Grand Jury Prize for best film in the same section as Ibelin at Sundance, the World Cinema Documentary Competition.
A documentary also took the award in the short film category. Civil Disobedience CT#2 (Sivil Ulydighet CT#2) by Thomas Østbye was one of two docs among the three nominated shorts, and ended up with the Amanda for Best Short Film.
This year's Honorary Amanda was awarded director Berit Nesheim, whose credits include Frida – Straight from the Heart (Frida – med hjertet i hånden, 1991) and the Oscar nominated The Other Side of Sunday (Søndagsengler, 1996). The honorary industry award, The Golden Clapper, went to veteran short film director Anne Haugsgjerd. The audience award Folkets Amanda (“The People’s Amanda”) went to Nils Gaup’s historical drama The Riot (Sulis 1907).
Nordisk Film & TV Fond was associated with 13 Amandas for the films Sex, Handling the Undead, Listen Up!, A New Kind of Wilderness, The Arctic Convoi (Konvoi) and The Brothers Gruff Go to Splash World (Bukkene Bruse på Badeland).
Full list of Amanda awards 2024:
Best Film: Ibelin (Director: Benjamin Ree, producer: Ingvil Giske)
Best Director: Dag Johan Haugerud for Sex
Best Actor in a Leading Role: Jan Gunnar Røise for Sex
Best Actor in a Supporting Role: Siri Forberg for Sex
Best Breakthrough Perfomance: Kriti Surjan Thepade for Listen Up!
Best Documentary: A New Kind of Wilderness (Director: Silje Evensmo Jacobsen, producer: Mari Bakke Riise)
Best Children’s Film: Listen Up! (Director: Kaveh Tehrani, producers: Ingvil Sæther Berger and Yngve Sæther)
Best Short Film: Civil Disobedience CT#2 (Director and producer: Thomas Østbye)
Best Foreign Language Film: Poor Things (Director: Yorgos Lanthimos, distributor: The Walt Disney Company Nordic)
Best Screenplay: Dag Johan Haugerud for Sex
Best Cinematography: Pål Ulvik Rokseth for Handling the Undead
Best Editing: Robert Stengård for Ibelin
Best Sound Design: Bent Holm og Andreas Franck for Handling the Undead
Best Original Score: Stein Johan Grieg Halvorsen and Eyvind Skeie, and original song Badebussen written by Per Áki Sigurdsson Kvikne (Kjartan Lauritsen) and Anders Nilsen for The Brothers Gruff Go to Splash World
Best Costume: Anne Margaretha Oskal for Eallogierdu – The Tundra Within Me (Eallogierdu - Tundraens voktere)
Best Make-up: Live Becker Knudsen and Morten Jacobsen for Handling the Undead
Best Production Design/Scenography: Linda Jansson for Handling the Undead
Best Visual Effects: Lars Erik Hansen (VFX supervisor Gimpville), Alex Hansson (VFX supervisor Haymaker) and Andreas Hylander (VFX Producer Haymaker) for The Arctic Convoi
Folkets Amanda (“The People’s Amanda”): The Riot (Director: Nils Gaup, producers: Tom Vidar Karlsen and Trond Eliassen)
The Amanda Committee’s Honorary Award: Berit Nesheim
The Amanda Committee’s Golden Clapper: Anne A. Haugsgjerd