Haugesund, Norway \u2014 Icelandic director Gu\u00f0mundur Arnar Gu\u00f0mundsson first feature \u201cHeartstone\u201d (\u201cHjartasteinn,\u201d pictured) and Swedish director Amanda Kernell\u2019s \u201cS\u00e1mi Blood\u201d (\u201cSameblod\u201d) are among the nominees for the Nordic Council Film Prize, the prestigious DKK 350,000 ($55,000) Nordic film award which will find its owner on Nov. 1 during the Council\u2019s session in Helsinki, Finland.<\/p>\n
Their competitors are Danish director Christian Tafdrup\u2019s \u201cParents\u201d (\u201cFor\u00e6ldre\u201d), Finnish director Selma Vilhunen\u2019s \u201cLittle Wing\u201d (\u201cTytt\u00f6 nimelt\u00e4 Varpu\u201d) and Norwegian director Izer Aliu\u2019s \u201cHunting Flies\u201d (\u201cFluefangeren\u201d), the Nordisk Film & TV Fond announced Tuesday night at the opening of the New Nordic Films market at the 45th Norwegian Intl. Film Festival at Haugesund.<\/p>\n
Scripted by Gu\u00f0mundsson, and produced by Anton M\u00e1ni Svansson, Lise Orheim Stender, Jesper Morthorst and Gu\u00f0mundsson, \u201cHeartstone\u201d is set in a small, remote Icelandic fishing village and follows two teenage boys, \u00de\u00f3r and Kristj\u00e1n, who are close friends \u2013 one is trying to win the heart of a girl, while the other discovers he has new feelings towards his friend. With Baldur Einarsson, Bl\u00e6r Hinriksson and Dilj\u00e1 Valsd\u00f3ttir in the leads, \u201cHeartstone\u201d swept the national Edda Awards, winning in nine categories, then toured 46 festivals where it picked up 30 prizes, including the Queer Lion in Venice<\/strong>, and top kudos in Angers, Chicago, Copenhagen, Gothenburg, Thessaloniki and Warsaw.<\/p>\n Directed by Sweden\u2019s Kernell, who also wrote her feature debut, \u201cS\u00e1mi Blood\u201d has collected international recognition too. It portrays 14-year-old Elle Marja, a reindeer-herding S\u00e1mi girl, who is exposed to Sweden\u2019s colonial oppression of the indigenous Lapp people in the 1930s. Undergoing race biology examinations at her boarding school, she starts dreaming of another life, but to achieve this she understands she has to become someone else and break all ties with her family and culture. Starring Lene Cecilia Sparrok, and produced by Lars G. Lindstrom for Nordisk Film Production Sweden, it was named Best Debut in Venice, took main awards in Gothenburg, Santa Barbara, Tokyo and is also among the three contenders for the E.U.\u2019s main film prize, the Lux Film Prize.<\/p>\n A third feature debut, \u201cParents\u201d by Denmark\u2019s Tafdrup, is introduced as \u201ca true portrait of woman\u2019s dreadful nature\u201d; his own screenplay follows Rasmus, who \u2013 when he meets Marie \u2013 is sure that finally, here is the love of his life. However, it does not take long before she reveals herself as a possessive and manipulative creature that painfully picks him apart. Anders Juul, Amanda Collin, Rasmus Hammerich and Nicolai Jandorf play the leads in the drama of Marie\u2019s destructive insistence on dominance, while Marta Mieczek and Thomas Heinesen produced for Nordisk Film Production. The Danish Film Academy gave it three Bodils, and Danish Film Critics followed up with three Roberts.<\/p>\n \u201cLittle Wing\u201d is the sophomore film by Finland\u2019s Vilhunen, who was nominated for an Oscar for her 2012 short \u201cDo I Have to Take Care of Everything?\u201d (\u201cPit\u00e4\u00e4k\u00f3 mun kaikki hoitaa?\u201d). Scripted by Kirsikka Saari, it is the story of 12-year-old Varpu, who goes to school and rides ponies and one night steals a car and drives across the country to find the father she has never known. Paula Vesala, Linnea Skogin and Lauri Maijalastar star in the Kai Nordberg and Kaarle Aho production for Making Movies, with has received a Jussi, Finland\u2019s national award.<\/p>\n \u201cHunting Flies\u201d is the feature debut of Norway\u2019s by Norway\u2019s Aliu, an Albanian born in Macedonia, who grew up in Sweden and is educated and lives in Norway.<\/p>\n The drama turns on an idealistic teacher who loses his job on the first day of school and, in a final attempt to get it back, locks his students up in the classroom, trying to force them to resolve a generation-long conflict between their villages. Also scripted by Aliu, the Khalid Maimouni production for Storyline Pictures has Burhan Amiti, Miraxh Ameti and Hadis Aliov in the leads; it has so far toured six festivals<\/p>\n