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“The Last Resort,” directed by Maria Sødahl, won the Dragon Award for Best Nordic Film at the Göteborg Film Festival on Saturday night.
The award comes with a whooping SEK 400,000 ($41,500) which, according to the organizers, makes it one of the world’s largest film prizes.
The jurors argued that Sødahl’s film, which is about a family who expects an exotic vacation but instead comes face-to-face with the harsh realities of a refugee crisis, “shows how the callousness bred by habitual cruelty diminishes 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 Lenken, and Gergely Pálos, added: “With pitch-perfect performances, a razor-sharp yet nuanced script, and not a trace of sentimentality, the film is a mirror in which we see ourselves with devastating clarity. If we refuse to confront our own complicity in the cruelty unfolding around us right now, the love we claim to live by cannot save us – because the compassion that underpins it is conditional.”
The film is sold by TrustNordisk. Sødahl, who’s Norwegian, previously directed Stellan Skarsgård and Andrea Bræin Hovig in well-received “Hope,” based on a personal story.
“My previous films are shamelessly autobiographical,” Sødahl told Variety, arguing that her latest opens up to a “more complex universe.”
“[It’s] a story where our Scandinavian protagonists start out as diplomatic humanists, until xenophobia leads them to act with primal violence and paranoia. The suspense is strong, and the gaze is unsentimental, in a story about us, for us and by us.”
Sweden’s Adam Lundgren – recently spotted in the arthouse hit “The Ugly Stepsister” – won a gender-neutral Best Acting award for “The Quiet Beekeeper,” which also opened the fest.
The jurors called it a “courageous, melancholic portrait of a life illuminated by longing and shadowed by loss – in which the unspoken carries more weight than words. When vulnerability finally dissolves the quiet façade, we are offered a delicate yet profound catharsis: love, and grief.”
The film also resonated with the viewers, claiming the Audience Award.
Emilie Thalund’s “Weightless” won the Fipresci Award and the Sven Nykvist Cinematography Award for Louise McLaughlin. Meanwhile, Iván Blanco’s “Malandro Moon” won Best Nordic Documentary.
During the event, the festival also spotlighted Noomi Rapace, who picked up the Nordic Honorary Dragon Award, and Polish director Agnieszka Holland (Honorary Dragon Award).
Rapace dedicated the award to her son. “This award is so much bigger than me. There’re so many people behind me: My teachers, my mentors, the people around me,” she said during the ceremony.
“I can’t speak about everyone, so I decided to speak about one person today: my son Lev, who has been my closest witness and my truth-teller. Who has grounded me and guided me, and who has been the person I learnt from the most. He always holds me accountable, makes me want to be braver and go further.”
You can find a full list of awards here:
Dragon Award Best Nordic Film
“The Last Resort” by Maria Sødahl
Dragon Award Best Acting
Adam Lundgren for “The Quiet Beekeeper”
Sven Nykvist Cinematography Award
Louise McLaughlin for “Weightless”
FIPRESCI Award
“Weightless” by Emilie Thalund
Audience Dragon Award Best Nordic Film
“The Quiet Beekeeper” by Marcus Carlsson
Dragon Award Best Nordic Documentary
“Malandro Moon” by Iván Blanco
The Ingmar Bergman Debut Award
“Bouchra” by Meriem Bennani and Orian Barki
Dragon Award Best International Film
“Calle Malaga” by Maryam Touzani
Youth Jury Dragon Award
“My Father’s Shadow” by Akinola Davies Jr.
Draken Film Award
“Uncle Ali and I” by Shahab Mehrabi
Honorary Dragon Award
Agnieszka Holland
Nordic Honorary Dragon Award
Noomi Rapace
Startsladden – Best Swedish Short
“All That Remains of Me” by Christer Wahlberg
Startsladden Cinematography Award
Christine Leuhusen for “Without Kelly”
Startsladden – Audience Award
“All That Remains of Me”
The Church of Sweden Angelos Film Award
“The Patron” by Julia Thelin.
The Nordic Series Script Award
Ingeborg Topsøe, writer of “Secrets We Keep”
Creative Courage Award
“Blood Cruise,” produced by Alexander Rönnberg from Northern Fableand and Will Tennant from Imaginarium Productions and commissioned by Johanna Gårdare and Sonja Nilsson Hermele from SVT.
Nordic Film Market Awards
“Out of Athens” by Badrudin Ga’ur
“Chentian” by Suha Arraf
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