Runar Runarsson’s Icelandic feature When The Light Breaks headed the winners at the 48th Goteborg Film Festival, taking the Dragon Award for Best Nordic Film.
Runarsson’s film, which opened the Cannes Un Certain Regard sidebar in May last year, received the 400,000 SEK ($36,046) Goteborg prize.
Scroll down for the full list of winners
The jury awarded the film “for its masterfully calibrated mise-en-scene, its sensitivity and delicate lightness, its director’s unexpectedly uplifting treatment of grief, acutely portrayed by a perfect young ensemble.”
A special mention went to Sylvia Le Fanu’s My Eternal Summer.
Eirik Svensson’s Safe House, which had its world premiere as the festival’s opening film, received the audience award.
Andrea Braein Hovig won the Dragon Award for Best Acting, for her role in Dag Johan Haugerud’s Love, with the jury crediting “a most subtle, complex performance, yet so powerful in its restraint; and for portraying an intricately layered, unapologetic female character.”
Further Goteborg awards included the 250,000 SEK ($22,529) best documentary prize, to Victoria Verseau’s Trans Memoria; and the Ingmar Bergman International Debut Award, to Denise Fernandes’ Swiss-Portuguese drama Hanami, a Locarno 2024 premiere.
Adam Elliot’s stop-motion animation Memoir Of A Snail won the best international film prize.
The awards were presented in a ceremony in Goteborg this evening (Saturday, February 1), with the 10-day festival closing on Sunday.
Previously announced awards include honorary prizes to Julie Delpy and Thomas Vinterberg; plus Nordic Film Market industry prizes to Zar Amir Ebrahimi’s Honor Of Persia and Miia Tervo’s You Crazy Thing.
Goteborg Film Festival 2025 winners
Best Nordic Film – When The Light Breaks, dir. Runar Runarsson
Special mention – My Eternal Summer, dir. Sylvia Le Fanu
Audience award - Safe House, dir. Eirik Svensson
Best Acting – Andrea Braein Hovig for Love
Fipresci award – The Girl With The Needle, dir. Magnus von Horn
Best Nordic documentary – Trans Memoria, dir. Victoria Verseau
International Debut award – Hanami, dir. Denise Fernandes
Best international film – Memoir Of A Snail, dir. Adam Elliot
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