WINNERS

Best Action Film (Short) Winner

Solace

A father, mother, and child lead their life in a distant, as if suspended in time, landscape. The prairie breathes its natural rhythm just like the family does. The child, she wanders around the land's confined infinity. What seems like an innocent exploration becomes a confrontational awakening.

Katarzyna Płazińska

Best Animated Film Winner

To Be A Tree

Xin

Best Animated Film (Short) Winner

Stellar

In a numb city, citizens – as square as their surroundings – are on another dull and trivial day, infiltrated by a colorful organism that takes us on an amazing, mind opening journey towards a luminous pulsating core.

Laura Højberg Kunov

Best Cinematographer Winner

Franconia

FRANCONIA – A cinematic loveletter dedicated to Franconia and to life. Last summer I went on a filmic journey in my homeland. I met new people and old friends, went to places I had never been before and came back with a new way of seeing things.

Jacco Kliesch

Best Comedy Winner

Skim for England

Frank wants to be a world champion. His chosen discipline? Competitive stone skimming. A tosser for as long as he can remember, Frank believes that with discipline, dedication and purposeful practice, he’s sure for victory. Skim for England blurs the line between factual and fictional filmmaking, following the character of Frank on his quest to win the real World Stone Skimming Championships on Easdale Island, Scotland, where he goes hand to hand with the biggest names in the sport, battling to become the world’s best. Winner of 'Best of the Festival' at Grenada Afterglow FF 2017. Winner of 'Best Comedy' and nominated for 'Best Film' at Portobello Film Festival 2017. It has also just been nominated for Best Comedy at the Annual Copenhagen Film Festival.

Tom Oxenham

Best Comedy (Short) Winner

But Wait There's More

A socially awkward Jehovah's Witness is forced to confront his shortcomings as a salesman when he knocks on the door of a washed-up infomercial spokesman.

Mike Mildon

Best Commercial Winner

What's Out There?

A Public Service Announcement video about the NASA's James Webb Space Telescope.

Kirill Yusim

Best Danish Film Winner

Shepherd of Souls

When a fetus is left on the street, the catholic man Tống Phước Phúc recieves a phone call. He drives into the night pick up a little box with the fetus. Tống Phước Phúc has created a cemetery for fetuses in Nha Trang in Vietnam, where thousands of fetuses have been buried – it is his mission to give them peace. Additionally, Phúc encourages women who are pregnant outside a marriage to live with him under the pregnancy instead of having an abortion. Shepherd of Souls portrays a single man’s different ethical actions and view on life, focusing on his perception of souls.

Anna Nørskov henriksen, Ingrid Høgh Rasmussen

Best Director Winner

Renard Rouge

Julie Renard, a young girl with a discrete passion for photography, lives on the Swedish countryside together with her wacky family. Three goofy brothers, a confused father who wishes he was French and a mother who's not often around. It's the summer of 98', and Julie follows her brothers into the woods. After losing them, she stumbles upon a stranger with a gun. Luckily the stranger is the vivid Elsa, roughly her age with a BB-gun. They spend the next 24 hours together, defining the years of their youth and getting to know each other well enough to make decisions that will last forever.

Leonard Rääf

Best Director (Student) Winner

La Manzana

Danilo, a ten years old introvert boy is on the verge of moving out of Cuba with his young mother. When he gets a green appel, a somewhat rare fruit type in the country, the boy grabs what might be his last chance to impress his classmates. La Manzana (The Apple), is an intimate look into the world of a teenager and his hopeless attempt to say farewell to everything and everyone he’s ever known. His depart cannot go unnoticed. He wants and will be missed!

Henry Disotuar

Best Documentary (Student) Winner

Albatross

A young director is documenting the last month of his grandfather’s daily life. The grandmother takes care of the grandfather in a affectionate and humorous way. The film deals with two major subjects: love and death.

Sverre Kvamme

Best Documentary Director Winner

Alone

Alone is about 91 years old actress and writer. Luba Skořepová used to be a member of czech National Theatre for almost 70 years and she still wants to act but she is to old for many people. So she is try to manage her last play from her small apartment by cellphone. The movie is about hope and hopelessness of faded glory. The partner of the film is the foundation of Miss World Tatiana Kucharova who takes care of lonely seniors.

Otakar Faifr

Best Drama Winner

Torments Of Love

A film from Guadeloupe based on hidden love and untold feelings between two sisters in their thirties and their father

Caroline Jules

Best Drama (Short) Winner

Maria

Maria spends her daytime sewing and cleaning while at night she works as a prostitute in the streets of downtown Porto. José, her lover and most faithful client, is still around but he can no longer give this 60 year old woman what she has always desired the most. In a raw and intimate portrayal, Maria reveals how love and growing old can hit like.

Catarina Neves Ricci

Best Editor Winner

It Is Safe Now

An Afghan asylum seeker seeks refuge in Europe and becomes isolated in an almost man-abandoned camp in the country. He is safe from the war, but what is freedom when living in a cage?

Yama Rauf

Best Experimental Winner

Angels, They Say

This three-minute, stop-motion animation, uses handmade drawings and cut paper to create an enigmatic world, inhabited by the familiar and the extraordinary. Interweaving voices recite excerpts from Rainer Maria Rilke’s First Duino Elegy, a wistful accompaniment to a lyrical meditation on mortality.

Miriam Hitchcock

Best Feature Documentary Winner

Finding Hygge

Standing accused, though perhaps not literally the worst year ever, 2016 sparked a search for something happier in the world, and the Danish concept of hygge (hoo-ga) found its way onto bookshelves, Pinterest boards, and the Oxford Dictionaries shortlist for “Word of the Year” alongside Brexiteer and Alt-right. Consistently ranked among the happiest people on earth, have the Danes possessed the key to happiness all along? And, can we find it for ourselves? Finding Hygge begins with a look at the world’s sudden interest in hygge and attempts to define it. Google searches for Hygge were up 163 percent in the last quarter of 2016, while the number of cozy, #hygge Instagram posts recently surpassed two million. At first glance, hygge seems as simple as enjoying friendly conversation over a cup of cocoa by candlelight, but this depiction pales in comparison to a glimpse at the real lives of people who truly know hygge.

Rocky Walls

Best Foreign Documentary Winner

In Exile: A Family Film

In Exile: A Family Film s about the life stories of the filmmaker ́s grandparents, parents, aunt ,and friends, all of who arrived in Mexico as refugees of the wrongly termed Spanish Civil War. Their stories intertwine with Spain's, and Mexico's.

Juan Francisco Urrusti

Best Music Score Winner

Lacrimosa

The young girl Mila wakes up in an unknown world full of mysteries. On her journey through ever changing surreal landscapes she meets her lost lover Theo. Mila has to learn that love also means to let go.

Tanja Mairitsch

Best Music Video Winner

Fear Of Heights

A fantastic voyage to defy fears, gravity & death

Benjamin Esterlis

Best Photograph Winner

China

This photography series is called 'China', it was created during my travels to China. My Dad’s family live and are Malaysian Chinese but several generations before me they are are originally from China. I became interested in Chinese contemporary art and culture and travelled around there for a month and a half. I learnt a lot about Chinese art and cuisine and connected with my family’s roots whilst I was there. I spent time in Beijing, Nanjing and went out into the countryside. I got to experience city life and spent time in an ancient inn in the countryside. This photographic series marks my journey of outsider to insider, I photographed subjects I connected with or things that stood out to me. The series has more photographs in it but I was only able to showcase 6. You can choose as many photographs as you would like from the series.

Best Picture Winner

Million Loves in Me

Inspired by a true story and a headline case in Hong Kong, MILLION LOVES IN ME follows the story of a wealthy mother and daughter who suffer from the psychological issues of obsessive- compulsive disorders, and their controversial private lives are exposed to the public through a charge of their animal hoarding behavior by the police. The topic of animal hoarding, to our knowledge, has not been shot into a movie in cinematic history. The story begins when Katy, the 45-year old daughter, is charged with animal cruelty after the police discovers more than a hundred dogs and cats being hoarded at her apartment. Following her trial at the court, the abnormal lives of Katy and her mother are unveiled. Behind their weird appearances, the mother and daughter live an extremely well-off life, with an uncontrollable urge to shop excessively for clothes, handbags and pets. They are despised and disliked by people wherever they go. Their unusual behavior arouses the attention of their neighborhood reporter who starts to investigate into their lives. After he finds out about the animal hoarding situation at their apartment, he discloses the matter to the public for the sake of justice. However, after seeing Katy being caught by the police and devastated by the intense public criticism, he begins to doubt the morality of his own actions… The film examines the common mental disorders that affect people from all ages across the world, while sometimes the sufferers may not even notice about the illnesses. In the story, both Katy and her mother are victims of these obsessive-compulsive disorders. Katy's mother has developed an obsessive compulsive personality disorder (OCPD) after being abandoned by her husband and son. Consequently, she has an obsessive need for control over her daughter's life. On the other hand, Katy has been living in an invisible cage set up by her dominant mother since childhood, without enjoying any normal school or social life. Being physically and emotionally abused by her mother, she has developed symptoms of obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) in her early age. At the age of 45, the poor woman only has the intellect of a 15 year-old child, and her gullible character makes her easily fall for men who cheat her out of money. Although her life is miserable under her mother's domination, Katy is indeed unable to live an independent life as a normal person. Likewise, in order to cope with her compulsion to control, her mother is unable to detach herself from her daughter. The two inseparable women seek relief from their respective disorders through excessive shopping, ending up in the hoarding of pets at their home. The pets are almost the only object in which Katy can find her comfort and trust. She treats them as her best friends, but on the contrary everyone blames her for being cruel to them. MILLION LOVES IN ME is a winner and official selection in international film festivals across Asia, Europe, North America and Australia. Winnings include World Newcomer Filmmaker of the Year (for Producers Kenny Chan and John Y), Best Picture, Best Actress (Lo Koon Lan), World Actor of the Year and Best Actor (John Y), Supporting Actress (Ruby Yap), Supporting Actor (Wilson Lee), Ensemble of Cast, Music, and Sound. MILLION LOVES IN ME is directed by Sampson YUEN, whose previous works include a famous TV drama in Hong Kong in which the international renowned Tony Leung and Maggie Cheung’s acting debut and the top-grossing films Bullets Over Petaling Street and Petaling Street Warriors. The film stars LO Koon-Lan, the well-respected award-winning actress from Hong Kong and John Y, who is also the scriptwriter and co-producer of the film. John is formerly a practicing lawyer in Hong Kong and makes his acting debut in this debatable drama about animal hoarding, mental disorder and confinement of life.

Sampson Yuen

Best Producer Winner

Uncle Silas

During her brother's visit to meet her newborn, Maureen witnesses firsthand the tailspin of self destruction he is on. This may be her last chance to save him.

Sayra Player, Rebecca Brillhart

Best Screenplay Winner

Callie Earlene

When the daughter of Czech immigrants leaves her all-white county in East Texas, circa 1920's, to take a job a school teacher in a black township, she is completely ignorant of segregation and Jim Crow. Gradually, she must learn to play both sides of the race equation to get what she wants — the best possible outcome for her students.

Best Screenwriter Winner

Uncle Silas

During her brother's visit to meet her newborn, Maureen witnesses firsthand the tailspin of self destruction he is on. This may be her last chance to save him.

Sayra Player, Rebecca Brillhart

Best Short Documentary Winner

Cycologic

When one's traveling the streets of Kampala one does not only face a chaotic and dangerous traffic environment but also struggles to go through endless queues, pollutions, motorcyclists and cars attacking you from every angle which is a energy-consuming dilemma. Politicians seems to have given up but there are a few people who strives to show that there are alternative ways of movements. The urban planner Amanda Ngabirano's biggest dream is to have a cycling lane in her city. An impossible task, according to most people, but not according to Amanda.

Emilia Stålhammar, Veronica Pålsson, Elsa Lövdin

Best Short Film Winner

The Desolate One

A mythic and elusive figure is hunted by an enemy deep into the wilderness

Daniel Boocock

Best Student Film Winner

Buoyancy

During a swim test for the danish elite team, 15 year old Sara realizes that she is about to loose everything she has fought for since early childhood. Her future depends on her immediate action. But can she make up for her failure in one last important act?

Simon Valentin

Best Thriller (Short) Winner

The Man Hidden In The Room

Young actress Elísabet experiences a day of very strange happenings. She gets a role in film she desired, but she's also being drawn into something rather dangerous, what might or might not be connected with a mysterious disappearance of her friend. A film about a thrilling power of desire was made in collaboration with some of the most talented and prominent Icelandic actors and film-makers.

Petr Makaj

Best Trailer Winner

Champion: The Franz Stampfl Story

Champion is a new feature-length documentary currently in production about the life of world-renowned Athletics Coach and Dunera Boy, Franz Stampfl – who produced over 450 Olympians, Commonwealth Games athletes, World Champions and National Champions from over 17 countries during his 60+ year career, including coaching Roger Bannister to break the Four Minute Mile in 1954. At a time when we all need heroes and to be reminded of the power of one, this documentary tells the tale of one individual's amazing and unexpected life – showing all of us that anyone, anywhere can do anything if we just dare to believe.

Sally McLean

Humanitarian Award Winner

I, Witness

I, WITNESS is portraying how to live and love when life challenges you the most. Haifaa Award is a doctor with a Syrian background living in Denmark. She has been several times in Syria to offer her medical help to the war victims. After being an important voice in the public debate in Denmark she has been denied access into Syria and it is now life risking for her to go back to her birthplace. Witnessing war and being torn apart from her last family roots in Syria is confronting Haifaa with one of our most present questions today – how to live and act when you have witnessed war.

Louise Leth