Stefan Komandarev's The World Is Big and Salvation Lurks around the Corner has received the Grand Prix in the Cinema Extraordinaire competition at Norway's Bergen International Film Festival (BIFF).

The film also took the Special Jury Prize at Warsaw last week, Saturday October 19.

Produced by Pallas Film (co-founded by German producer Karl Baumgartner), The World is the story of Alex's return to Bulgaria, after many years in Germany. Suffering from amnesia after a car crash, he is taken by his grandfather to a small village where his childhood memories rise to the surface.

Christian Karim Chrobog's War Child, following hip hop star Emmanuel Jal's return to his native Sudan where he was once forced to serve as a child soldier, was named Best Documentary. The youth jury preferred Polish director Andrzej Fidyk's Yodok Stories for its documentary prize.

A local Alligator Film production, Stian Einar Forgaard's Ekornet, took the award for Best Short.

The festival ended Wednesday October 22. BIFF has signed former sales and marketing executive Geir Elling Eikenes as managing director, to allow festival director Tor Fosse to fully concentrate on programming the country's largest film festival.

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