14/03/2017 - Female directors went home with the prizes at the Norwegian film festival, which focused on female filmmakers and set a new audience record

Coinciding with International Women’s Day (8 March), Norway’s Kosmorama - Trondheim International Film Festival focused on female filmmakers, and fittingly, at the closing ceremony (12 March), the festival’s prizes ended up in the hands of woman directors.

With six international festival wins, including San Sebastián and Toronto, Palestinian director Maysaloun Hamoud’s In Between [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Maysaloun Hamoud
film profile] received the New Directors Award for Best Film in the main competition comprising 13 films from nine countries and four continents. Hamoud’s feature debut follows three women who live together in a Tel Aviv apartment: one is a DJ in a bar, another is a lawyer, and the third, Noor, is a younger Arab Muslim who moves in later. In spite of their differences, they strike up a very close relationship. In Trondheim, Shaden Kanboura, who plays Noor, and her fellow cast member Henry Andrawes talked about the film. The award is intended to promote up-and-coming filmmakers – “the new voices in the global film world, whom we think will make their mark in the future,” according to the festival.

“Hamoud has made an engaging film with three credible characters, all of them crushed between themselves and their herd; they create their own flock, where all of them sacrifice something for each other. They make us proud, and we care about them,” said the jury, made up of actress Marianne Meløy, author Frode Saugestad and critic Einar Guldvog Staalesen.

After Swedish director Amanda Kernell’s first feature, Sámi Blood [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Amanda Kernell
interview: Lars Lindstrom
film profile], won for Best Nordic Film at Göteborg and earned her Venice’s FEDEORA Award, it has now left Trondheim with the Audience Award. Kernell introduced local audiences to the film alongside one of her lead actresses, Lene Cecilia Sparrok. Set in the 1930s, the film portrays a 14-year-old Sámi reindeer breeder (also played by Maj-Doris Rimpi), who breaks all ties with her family and culture after she has endured racism and biology examinations at her boarding school and understood that this is the only way to start another life. Sámi Blood opened in Sweden earlier this month (3 March), and according to the Swedish Film Institute, it was given 4.40 points by the Swedish critics, the best result in two years.

According to festival director Silje Engeness, the 14th edition of the Kosmorama - Trondheim International Film Festival has been a milestone for the event, not least because it registered a record number of more than 27,000 admissions. Next year’s showcase will take place from 5-11 March 2018.