This summer several international prices have been awarded to Norwegian films.
20/09/2005 :: UNO is one of the most profiled Norwegian films both in Norway and abroad during the last year. UNO is a story from inner-city Oslo about David, a twenty five-year-old with few prospects for the future. His days are spent hanging around with petty criminals at an inner-city gym. He has to let everything go if he wants to start a new and better life, and what card he chooses to play will decide if he wins or loses.
At the 2005 Palic International Film Festival in Yugoslavia, Aksel Hennie was awarded the Silver Tower for an “extraordinary combination of acting, writing and directing skills” in UNO.
In Brit Jorunn Hundsnes’ film My Beloved Child we meet 33-year-old Sigrid Beate Edvardsen during the last days before going to jail to serve a seven years sentence for having killed her own father. As a child, Sigrid Beate was subjected to sexual abuse by her father, and the film uncovers a terrible family tragedy.
My Beloved Child received the Minister of Culture Award for Best Film during the One World Human Rights Documentary Film Festival in Prague, Czech Republic. The jury’s decision states that; “from photographs in the family archives and a large amount of home-video footage, the author artfully creates a well-balanced picture of the tragic fate of a woman whose endured suffering led her to murder her own father”.
Finding Friends is a children’s film set in the Norwegian country- side. The film tells the story of 12 year old Petter and his family who moves from the city to a small farm in the middle of nowhere for the summer. But the country-side is not as quiet and peaceful as Petter thinks. He finds himself catching car thieves and saving an abused dog. At the International Film Festival for Young People in Giffioni, Italy Arne Lindtner Næss’ film Finding Friends received the Gnam- Fest Award.
Torun Lian’s film The Color of Milk is a romantic comedy with Selma, 12, as the main character and is a film about the troubles of first love. About how difficult it may be to fall in love, and how difficult it may be to try not to fall in love. At the 2005 Berlin International Film Festival, The Color of Milk got a Special Mention from the Jury of the Kinderfilmfest; “In this film a humorous family convinced us with a special type of humour. The film is all about growing up while remaining a child. The young actors portrayed this feeling with heart.” The Film also received the Grand Award ‘Guri’ (a local word for ‘Children’) at the International Film Festival for Children- and Youth in Divercine, Uruguay, in addition to the price for Best Fiction Film from the international jury.
The Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs