Daneskov’s The Elite was the elitest, winning the New Talent Grand PIX
- The Danish director’s feature debut collected the top prize at the Copenhagen International Film Festival, while Dagur Kári’s Virgin Mountain took home the Audience Award
At the Copenhagen International Film Festival’s awards brunch at Copenhagen’s National Museum on 17 April, Danish director Thomas Daneskov received the CPH PIX New Talent Grand PIX (along with €10,000) for his feature debut, The Elite [+see also:
trailer
film profile]. The festival ends on 22 April.
In competition with nine other newcomers, Daneskov won for his “disturbing and hilarious portrait of privileged youth made in a spirit of collectivity. We are pleased to discover a deeply personal, relevant and contemporary new voice in Danish independent cinema,” said the international jury, comprising Alex Ross Perry (US), Gabe Klinger (Brazil) and Katrine Wiedemann (Denmark).
Daneskov, whose short Puff Puff Pass collected both the Talent and Audience Prizes at the Odense International Film Festival in 2013, filmed his own and Emil Nygaard Albertsen’s script about a young writer who inherits a mansion with a lake and a park, and invites a group of up-and-coming artists to join him in a collective – he hopes it will inspire him to write the sequel to his bestselling debut novel.
Nikolaj Bæk, Ali Sivandi, Thomas Persson, Casper Morilla, Mads Reuther and Shelly Jacqueline Levy play the leads in The Elite, which was created through a collective process involving the creative and technical teams, and was produced by Carla Luffe for Eliten Films.
Meanwhile, Icelandic director Dagur Kári’s Virgin Mountain [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile], which was selected for a Special Gala at the recent Berlinale, was given the Politiken Audience Award after a close race with Hungarian director Kornél Mundruczó’s White God [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Kornél Mundruczó
film profile] and Spanish director Alberto Rodríguez’s Marshland [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Alberto Rodríguez
film profile]. Kári portrays 43-year-old Fusi, who still lives with his mother as he attempts to find the courage to enter into adulthood.
In collaboration with Danish pubcaster DR, both the audience and a professional jury (consisting of Danish director Per Fly, Danish writer Maria Månson and CPH PIX festival director Jacob Neiiendam) chose the Best Nature Film: the audience's choice was Skovfogeden, directed by Simon Herbst, while the jury preferred Assa Rytter Jensen and Jo Ann Lyngklip Kyhlensø’s entry, Révolution de la Nature Moderne.
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