At a special gala ceremony, the Göteborg Film Festival awarded its top prize, the Nordic Film Award to the Icelandic director Dagur Kári for Dark Horse (Voksne Mennesker), a film about a graffiti artist who falls for the same woman as his best friend. This was Kari’s second win, after Noi The Albino about an ice school dropout in Iceland who dreams of running away with the woman at the gas station.

Highlights of the festival included the Nordic Event, a market of new works in progress and brand new features from the Nordic area. The Göteborg fest screened over 200 new Swedish films, many by debutants. Also presented at the festival was Sweden's first cinema manifesto, inspired by the Danish "dogma" concept - Doris Film, which sponsors a script competition since 2004 in order to structurally influence the kinds of roles that are written about women in Sweden, and to see to it that women are in key technical and decision making positions.

The festival kicked off shortly before during the Swedish national film awards - the Guldbagge held at the Göteborg Opera house this year. Lena Einhorn not only took home the most prestigious award of Swedish film this year, the Guldbagge for the best national film best film and script for Nina’s Journey, a tale of survival story shot on DV about Einhorn’s mother who lived in the Polish ghetto in Warsaw in WWII and emigrated to Sweden. Einhorn also won a newly established award at the Göteborg Film– the first "Mai Zetterling Award" named for one of Sweden’s most artistic directors. I had the opportunity to speak with Einhorn the day after, her award one that was a surprise to those betting on heavy hitting veterans. (INTERVIEW WITH EINHORN.)


For Movie Magazine This is Moira Sullivan Stockholm Sweden

© 2006 - Moira Sullivan - Air Date: 02/06