Finland's Seven Songs From The Tundra (Seitseman Laulua Tundralta) was the surprise winner of the best Nordic film prize at Norway's Amanda Awards, which take place during the Norwegian film festival in Haugesund.

The black-and-white feature mixes dramatised local legends and documentary footage from the lives of the all-but-unknown Nenets tribes in the northern part of Finland and Russia.

Produced by Jorn Donner Productions Oy, which also handles sales, Seven Songs was directed by Anastasia Lapsui and veteran documentary filmmaker Markku Lehmuskallio from a script by native Nenets. It stars no professional actors and is in the Nenets' own language.

The film, something of a dark horse in the Nordic Amanda line-up, was awarded the prize for "the originality of the film's storytelling style between fiction and documentary, through lyrical images with mythic dimension, recounting previously unknown and untold chapters of history and clashes of culture".

Other nominees for the award were Icelandic hip black comedy 101 Reykjavik, Denmark's Gone With the Fish and Swedish box-office hit Tsatiki.

The remaining 10 Amanda Awards are awarded on the last day of the Haugesund film festival on Saturday, September 2.