Five Nordic features are nominated for the Nordic Council Film Prize. The prestigious recognition, celebrating its 20th anniversary this year, was first awarded to Aki Kaurismäki’s “The Man Without a Past.”
Hlynur Pálmason’s “Godland,” Teemu Nikki’s “The Blind Man Who Did Not Want to See Titanic,” “Lamb” by Valdimar Jóhannson, Joachim Trier’s Oscar-nominated “The Worst Person in the World” and “Clara Sola,” directed by Nathalie Álvarez Mesén, will all vie for the award.
It is billed as a prize that celebrates “a unique filmmaking vision, deeply rooted in Nordic culture” and comes with a sum of DKK 300,000 ($40,000), shared equally between the director, screenwriter and producer.
Trier, fresh off his win at Saturday’sAmanda Awards, already won the prize in 2016 for “Louder Than Bombs.” It’s also not the first nomination for Finland’s Nikki, previously noticed for darkly comedic “Euthanizer.” His new film, featuring Petri Poikolainen who suffers from MS, scored the Audience Award at Venice and mere days ago was named best film at Beijing International Film Festival, with Poikolainen winning the best actor gong.
“We all knew the film was quite good, but we were not ready for this kind of success. It surprised all of us. But I can’t complain. Getting our movie to many festivals and winning many prizes is quite pleasant. It could be worse,” Nikki told Variety.
“It’s amazing. Prizes keep coming and coming, and I just love it,” added Poikolainen, with producer Jani Pösö chiming in:
“I am super proud of the success of our film. But the best prize is that Petri got the opportunity to show the world how good he is.”
The announcement marks a double score for Warsaw-based New Europe Film Sales which is overseeing sales on both “Godland” and Noomi Rapace starrer “Lamb,” representing Denmark and Iceland. The latter, argued the jury, successfully combined “Iceland’s tradition of pastoral cinema and the literary heritage of the folk tale.”
“We are proud to be working with both Hlynur and Valdimar, directors that we have followed since their first feature films,” says head of acquisitions Marcin Łuczaj.
“We’ve always been a discovery label and it turned out that Scandinavia is a great source of talent and home to unique films. Especially Iceland and Denmark are countries where filmmakers combine unique handwriting with universal stories, emotional impact and sense of humor, which seems to be resonating with a global audience.” (Variety)