On Saturday night at the Gothenburg Film Festival, director Maria Sødahl’s The Last Resort won the Dragon Award for Best Scandinavian Film.
The award carries a huge prize money of 400,000 Swedish kronor ($41,500), making it one of the world’s biggest film awards, according to organizers.
The jury said Sodahl’s film, about a family expecting an exotic vacation but instead facing the harsh reality of a refugee crisis, “shows how the insensitivity produced by habitual brutality weakens us all, hollowing out our relationships even with our partners and children.”
The jury, headed by “The Act of Killing” director Joshua Oppenheimer and including Fabrice Aragno, Lia Boysen, Sanna Renken, and Gergely Palos, said, “Perfect acting, sharp yet sensitive.” “Finely written and without a trace of sentimentality, this film is a mirror into which we reflect ourselves with devastating clarity, if we refuse to face our own complicity in the atrocities unfolding around us.” The love we claim to live now cannot save us, because the mercy that underpins it is conditional. ”
This film is distributed by TrustNordisk. Norwegian director Thordar previously directed Stellan Skarsgård and Andrea Blaine Hovig in the well-received “Hope,” which was based on a personal story.
“My previous films have been unashamedly autobiographical,” Thordahl told Variety, insisting that his latest work opens up to “a more complex world.”
“[The film]tells the story of Scandinavian protagonists who start out as outgoing humanists and then become radically violent and paranoid due to xenophobia. The suspense is strong, the gaze is unsentimental, and it’s a story about us, by us, and for us.”
Sweden’s Adam Lundgren (who recently gained attention for his arthouse hit “The Ugly Stepsisters”) won the award for best performance regardless of gender for “The Quiet Beekeeper,” which also opened the festival.
The jury described the film as “a brave, melancholic portrait of a life illuminated by longing and shadowed by loss, in which what is left unsaid carries more weight than words. When vulnerability finally dissolves the quiet surface, we are offered a delicate and profound catharsis of love and sadness.”
The film struck a chord with viewers and won the Audience Award.
Zero Gravity, directed by Emily Talund, won the Fipresci Award and the Sven Nyqvist Cinematography Award, directed by Louise McLaughlin. Meanwhile, Ivan Blanco’s Malandro Moon won the award for Best Scandinavian Documentary.
During the event, the festival also spotlighted Nordic Honorary Dragon Award winner Noomi Rapace and Polish director Agnieszka Holland (Honorary Dragon Award).
Lapaz dedicated the award to his son. “This award is so much bigger than me. There are so many people behind me: my teachers, my mentors, the people around me,” she said at the ceremony.
“I can’t talk about everyone, so today I decided to talk about one person: my son Lev. He was my closest witness, he told me the truth, he grounded me, he guided me, and he is the one from whom I learned the most. He always holds me accountable and makes me want to be more courageous and go further.”
A complete list of awards can be found here.
Dragon Award for Best Nordic Film
“The Last Resort” by Maria Sodahl
Dragon Award Best Performance Award
Adam Lundgren “The Quiet Beekeeper”
Sven Nyqvist Cinematography Award
Louise McLaughlin “Weightless”
International Federation of Critics Award
Emily Talund’s “Weightless”
Audience Dragon Award for Best Scandinavian Film
“The Quiet Beekeeper” by Marcus Carlson
Dragon Award for Best Scandinavian Documentary
Ivan Blanco’s “Malandro Moon”
Ingmar Bergman Debut Award
“Bouchra” by Meryem Bennani and Orian Balki
Dragon Award for Best International Film
“Málaga Street” by Mariam Touzani
Youth Jury Dragon Award
“Father’s Shadow” by Akinola Davis Jr.
Draken Film Award
“Uncle Ali and Me” by Shahab Mehravi
Honorary Dragon Award
Agnieszka Holland
Nordic Honorary Dragon Award
noomi rapace
Startsladden – Best Swedish Short Story
“All That Remains of Me” by Christer Wahlberg
Starz Ludden Cinematography Award
Christine Lehusen “Without Kelly”
Starz Ladden – Audience Award
“All that’s left of me”
Swedish Church Angelos Film Award
“The Patron” by Julia Thelin.
Nordic Series Screenplay Award
Ingeborg Topsoe, author of “The Secrets We Keep”
creative courage award
“Blood Cruise” was produced by Alexander Rönnberg of Northern Fableand and Will Tennant of Imaginarium Productions and commissioned by Johanna Gårdare and Sonja Nilsson Hermele of SVT.
Nordic Film Market Award
“Outside Athens” by Badruddin Gaur
“Chentian” by Suha Araf
