Stockholm International Film Festival announces 2013 award winners

The jury has now made its decisions for the 24th edition of the Stockholm International Film Festival. For the second year in a row the jury has awarded a female director the prestigious Bronze Horse.

The jury festival jury consists of Kristian Petri (chair of jury), Ai Weiwei, Helena Danielsson, Lena Endre, Moa Gammel and Hiner Saleem.

The 2013 award winners are:

Best Film: The Selfish Giant by Clio Barnard

A uniquely complete film. Shattering, to the point, poetic, believable, delicate, humorous. The sensitive interaction between the two main actors has resulted in the most touching portrayal of friendship we’ve seen in film. Only someone hard-hearted could fail to love this film.

Best First Film: Last stop Fruitvale Station by Ryan Coogler

This film presents a captivating slice-of-life, or maybe rather a slice-of-death, portrayal of the taking of someone’s life. The abhorrent, meaningless murder is captured sensitively and sincerely in this energetic film. It’s both a brutal eye-opener and a masterful cinematic achievement. A harsh reminder of the impact slavery has left on our contemporary society. This impressive debut is a must for everyone to see!

Best Script: Miss Violence (by Alexandros Avranas), Script: Alexandros Avranas and Kostas Peroulis

Sparse, precise, engaging. A relentless story about a family’s disintegration is depicted with complete lack of sentimentality. This script is very exact – following the story is like opening a watch and marvelling at the delicate mechanics within. All aspects of the story work together to drive this moving and unusual story forward.

Best Actor: George Mackay in For Those in Peril
Very finely acted, and with small nuances, this actor expresses what it is like to be forced to the outer limits of human pain and sorrow. His complete vulnerability, isolation and despair are just as frightening for us as viewers as for his character and is very accurately portrayed.

Best Actress: Jasmine Trinca in Miele
An unexpected presentation of a very unusual character who arouses great curiosity with her very subjective yet distanced demeanor. The acting is spellbinding despite the underplayed style. We are dragged into her world but left guessing as to what really motivates her. The transparency of her expression as she presides over people’s last living moments etches itself into ones subconscious making the viewer live through these experiences as if they were their own.

Best Cinematography: Lorenzo Hagerman for Heli
The film’s photography lifts the story at the same time undermining both the landscape and the events taking place guiding the viewer along previously unexplored paths. The camera forces us to visit places we have never been, and which we maybe wish we had been spared. However provocative the images are they achieve an unexpected beauty, and come together to create a shattering and comprehensive film.

Best Music: Hans Zimmer for 12 Years a Slave
Hans Zimmer has mastered the style of classic musical storytelling. He combines the almost frighteningly epic with the sensitively delicate: from hand claps to symphony. He is daring, and it pays off!

Best Short Film: Tears of Inge by Alisi Telengut

Although it was the shortest film, as well as the only animated one in the competition, we found it to combine all the elements of cinema. It’s well executed, efficient and quietly moving. It uses a textual, three-dimensional technique that we’ve never really seen before in this way. It’s beauty is in it’s simplicity, and the film feels mature and fully formed as a result.

Telia Film Award: Child’s Pose by Calin Peter Netzer

With an impressive attention to detail and an easy, unaffected storytelling, Calin Peter Netzer describes how maternal love’s darker sides and a son’s hopelessly failed emancipation are amplified by a terrible tragedy. With a delicate hand he highlights the characters and lets them grow into three dimensional portraits in a sincere and genuine drama where the turning point is allowed to take place inside the viewer as much as on the silver screen.

Citroën DS Rising Star: Adam Lundgren

This year’s Rising Star is an actor who has already made a lasting impression on screen despite his young age. With great precision and understanding of the craft he portrays a wide range of emotions, from playfulness and humour to vibrating love and deep pain. All these qualities were also present in his most recent film, the critically acclaimed “Känn ingen sorg”.

Stockholm Feature Film Award: She’s Wild Again Tonight by Fia-Stina Sandlund

A post-modern, metafictional, slightly absurd re-make of Strindberg's Miss Julie (Fröken Julie). The film takes place in a contemporary New York apartment in which the actors play heightened versions of themselves. Alexandra Dahlström (as Miss Julie) and Jens Lekman (as Jean) meet to reenact the play to Lekmans' music.

Stockholm Lifetime Achievement Award: Claire Denis

Claire Denis refuses to close her eyes to the creative and destructive force unleashed by human weaknesses. A bold explorer of postcolonial Africa and the dark corners of modern society, who invites the audience to an exposed universe that is beautiful and raw. This year's Lifetime Achievement Award goes to a filmmaker who continues to seek what others turn away from, always fearless and with a rare eye for visual poetry.

Stockholm Visionary Award: Peter Greenaway

Whether men are drowning by numbers, bodies are turned into art or savage nature is transformed into haute cuisine, Peter Greenaway has always challenged the spectator like a true modern visionary. By questioning traditional notions of artistic expression and combining the latest techniques with his vast knowledge of the classic art forms, this year’s recipient of the Stockholm Visionary Award has indeed created a new cinematic language.


Special Mention Best Film: 12 Years a Slave by Steve McQueen

This award goes to a director who is in complete control of his chosen mode of expression. The film succeeds at being at the same time both epic and personal. All too often a director can overshadow their own film, but here is someone whose presence doesn’t force itself onto the film, but which still shines through in each editorial choice he has made. Quite apart from the beautiful craftsmanship, this film is uniquely courageous. The unexpected duration of certain close-ups never feels self-serving, as each shot contributes to the film as a whole creating the unique feeling and aura of 12 Years a Slave.

Special Mention Best First Film: Återträffen (The Reunion) by Anna Odell

Bold, courageos, funny, provocative. The Reunion is a well-crafted story, and navigates a mix of genres intelligently. We find ourselves in a labyrinth of mirrors where the viewer is confronted with questions about power, loneliness and bullying at every turn. The film does not present any answers, but leaves one with a lot of rewarding questions. This is a film with strong artistic integrity.

1 km film – Scholarship: Förår by John Skoog

For evocative and compelling cinematic portraits that move through time and space, combining the countryside’s innocence with the feeling of an ominous external world. With an enigmatic and highly personal narrative, the director recurs to the subjectivity of the memory in a society destined for change.

1 km film – Special Mention: Mr Magdy, Room Number 17 Please by Carl Olsson

For an ambitious, challenging and brave project without compromise.


Ifestival Award: Swear by Lea Becker

(Voted for by the audience of the 24th Stockholm International Film Festival.)

Press contact:
Johnny Nylund
Phone: + 46 72 914 6005
Fanny Westin
Phone: + 46 73 774 9415
E-mail: press@stockholmfilmfestival.se

The 24th Stockholm International Film Festival November 6-17 2013.
The Stockholm International Film Festival started in 1990 and is today one of the leading competitive film festivals in Northern Europe. The festival takes place every year in November with more than 180 films from more than 50 countries. More than a festival: we organize exclusive screenings and the popular Summer Cinema – an outdor mini-festival. Every year in spring the Stockholm International Film Festival Junior brings the latest films to youngsters between 6 and 16 years of age.
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