Hisham Zaman has become the first director to be a two-time winner of Gothenburg’s Dragon Award for Best Nordic Film.

This year, Zaman’s Letter to The King won the top prize (and its lucrative €113,000 award), following on last year’s win for Before Snowfall.

Letter To The King is about a group of refugees, all with their own agendas, on an excursion to Oslo.

The jury said: “Letter to the King is a film that takes us to a subculture that is not very well-known. It tells us about people stuck in some kind of no man’s land. It is a film that is compassionate and honest in its presentation of human existence.

“To tell a story with multiple characters is a difficult task, and we appreciate the way all the pieces are put together.”

The jury comprised Chad director Mahamat-Saleh Haroun, Icelandic producer Agnes Johansen, Norwegian producer Kalle Løchen, Swedish director Anna Odell, Finnish actress Maria Sid and Danish cinematographer Erik Molberg Hansen.

Zaman said: “I am thankful and feel privileged to be acknowledged one more time by my Nordic colleagues. This film is low-budget, and both artistically and financially my most risky project so far. Three years of hard work has made me believe I should continue my work with film as a way of narrative.”

The Dragon Award Best for Nordic Documentary went to Anna Eborn for Pine Ridge, which examines the Pine Ridge Indian reservation in South Dakota.

The jury praised Eborn for her “courage to trust both the complex reality she has faced and the audience’s strength to receive this world without simplification and illustration. The director masterfully uses the unique possibilities of documentary film to forge an authentic presence we do not normally encounter.”

The other awards were:

The Ingmar Bergman International Debut Award
A Street in Palermo, Emma Dante

Audience Choice Best Nordic Film
Of Horses and Men, Benedikt Erlingsson

Audience Choice Best First Feature
Twin Sisters, Mona Friis Berheussen

Nordic Honorary Dragon Award
Baltasar Kormákur

Sam Nykvist Cinematography Award
Fredrik Wenzel, The Quiet Roar

Telia Film Award
The Disciple, Ulrika Bengts

Lorens Award for Best Producer
Lars Jonsson, We Are The Best!

FIPRESCI Prize
Of Horses and Men, Benedikt Erlingsson

Audience Choice for Best Short
Dirtbags, Marcus Carlsson

Novella Fim Award
Solitude, Beata Gardeler

Audience Choice Novella
Batter, Manuel Concha

Angelos Prize
Leo Palmestal, Anders Rundberg and Jennifer Jerez for I’m A Fucking Panther

Mai Zetterling Scholarship
Ester Martin Bergsmark

Topics