WINNERS

Discover the award-winning films of the 5th Copenhagen Film Festival nomination categories and learn more about all the inspiring filmmakers we featured this year.

Best Animated Film Winner

Kitchen by Measure

After seeing his wife struggle with mundane tasks, the inventive Ingólfur gets hooked on the idea of building the perfect kitchen for her.

Sólrún Ylfa Ingimarsdóttir, Atli Arnarsson

Best Cinematographer Winner

Since Marie joined Bruno Mercier's restaurant, a multi-star chef, she only thinks to perfect her skills. But Thomas, the sous-chef, is wary of this possible rival. During a service, Mary cuts herself, letting a few drops of blood mix with her sauce. When Bruno tastes Marie's dish, he considers it perfect.

Merryl Roche

Best Danish Film Winner

In the Soil

Karoline wakes up to find her father, Kjeld, sitting in their backyard. He is acting strangely. Kjeld has become obsessed by something and feels compelled to dig a deep pit in their backyard. Karoline feels frightened by her father’s behavior and doesn’t know what to do. Confused and paralyzed she becomes a spectator to her father’s new project. Kjeld manically starts by measuring how large the pit must be. He then goes to his garage to collect his tools and to prepare himself. Karoline tries her best to stay away but is suddenly drawn into her father’s obsession when he asks her to help him dig. Unwilling she agrees to help him. As the pit gets deeper Kjeld becomes more and more manic. At night Karoline begins to dream about the pit and her worry turns to fear when she realizes that the pit is a grave. Scared for what her father might do she tries the cover the grave but Kjeld stops her attempt. Karoline realizes that she can no longer help her father and decides to leave the next morning. As she is walking away Kjeld prepares the grave with sharp sticks. He climbs up a ladder and throws himself into the grave

Casper Rudolf Emil Kjeldsen

Best Director Winner

Fish Takes Off

The golden fish is dead. Gripped by her bad conscience, a young woman drives to Venice. Upon her arrival, she realizes that she mixed up two feelings. She begins a search through an empty city on a quest to find her lost emotion.

Deniz Cooper

Best Drama Winner

Corral

Corral is a political drama that takes place in rural Brazil, in the city of Gravatá, where during the mayoral elections, the population is divided between the Blue and Red parties, which represent political oligarchies fighting for power. Due to a severe drought, water is the main bargaining chip to get votes from the population. Chico Caixa is a former city employee. He lost his job trying to take water supplies to a poor neighborhood, abandoned for political reasons. Caixa is invited by a childhood partner, Joel, to work on his councilor campaign. Joel presents himself as an alternative to the old candidates, who have been in power for decades. But as the campaign progresses, Chico Caixa soon realizes that breaking apart from the established political game is not always an easy alternative.

Marcelo Brennand

Best Editor Winner

Safe Space

It’s 1979. Police corruption is rife. Whistleblower – Witness 451 – has some potentially devastating information to drop. In the interrogation room lead detectives Landy and Michaels unleash a finely engineered routine to ensure that doesn’t happen…

Jake Robb

Best Experimental Winner

A Machine to Live In

A Machine to Live In is a hybrid documentary linking the cosmic power structures of the state to the mystical architecture of cults and utopian cities in the distant hinterlands of Brazil. This “sci-fi” documentary provides a complex portrait of life, poetry, and myth set against the backdrop of the space-age city of Brasília and a flourishing landscape of UFO cults and transcendental spaces.

Yoni Goldstein

Best Feature Documentary Winner

Ghiaccio – Sweeping Lives

Val Pellice, Italy. A valley that is slowly depopulating and where hundreds of asylum seekers arrived to live. Amongst them are Kebba, James, Edward, Seedia, Lamin, and Joseph. Six African boys that share many things. They are running from conflicts and threats, and now find themselves waiting for a commission, that knows very little about them, to tell them if they are going to be embarked on a plane back to their countries of origin, or if, instead, they may have the chance to build a new life in Italy. They share the limbo in which they are forced to live, but also a common dream: the first ever curling team composed by asylum seekers.

Tomaso Clavarino

Best Humanitarian Award Winner

Food for Change

Our plate is our most powerful weapon in fighting global warming and in protecting our planet. Today, our diets play a major role in the threats weighing on our planet. But alas, there is hope. Investigative journalist Benoît Bringer sets off on a global search for women and men who are inventing a new dietary model — one which respects both humankind and nature. This documentary sheds hope, showing us how we can each be a force for change and develop recipes for an economically viable dietary transition.

Benoît Bringer

Best Music Video Winner

(I'm In Love With An) Astronaut – Long Tall Jefferson

Being locked down on planet earth seeking for extraterrestrial love, Long Tall Jefferson surrounds himself with an imaginary world. Adjusting antennas for long searched signals and preparing himself for a future departure. Awaiting for this day to come, he spends his time in a lovable solitude or as modern-day singles call it: playing Planet-Tinder.

Maximilian Speidel

Best Screenplay Winner

The Seeker

Isabela is the daughter of a powerful politician and grew up in a context of perks and luxury. In her process of maturity, Isabela falls in love with Giovani, founder of a community that preaches sustainability and free love, and, fascinated by a different world logic, abandon everything she had in an attempt to build a different life. It is Father's Day and Isabela does not visit her family for four years. In an attempt to reconnect, she decides to introduce Giovani to her parents and brother, but what she did not expect is that back home she would find out that her father is involved in one of the biggest corruption scandals ever recorded in Brazil. There will be no other possibility but to face and recognize the ghosts of her past.

Bernardo Barreto

Best Short Film Winner

Roqaia

After surviving a suicide bomb attack, 12-year-old Roqaia finds herself in the middle of a media frenzy, as she deals with her trauma all by herself.

Diana Saqeb Jamal

Best Student Documentary Winner

Bristling

Our bodies are hairy. But our relationship to body hair is ambivalent: we remove, trim, blow-dry, style and care for it lovingly. ‘bristling’ addresses the taboo and playfully portrays five people and the ways in which they deal with their bodily hair.

Marlen Schmid