Among other industry awards Norway’s ‘11 Hours’ won Best Nordic Project and Finland’s ‘Darkness Counts' is voted Best Documentary Project Former BBC journalist Naima Mohamud’s heartfelt and warm comedy “Halima,” about a 10-year-old Somali girl trying to fit in Finland in 1998 took home Helsinki’s Finnish Film Affair’s top prize for Best Fiction on Thursday evening. The award was handed out by the jury, including U.S. producer and executive Jodi Hildebrand (formerly at Condé Nast and Marvel Studios), the British Film Institute’s Phoebe Hall and FEST-New Directors festival director Fernando Vasquez, who said: “The director’s energetic and authentic voice shone through in the pitch and translates into what promises to be a compelling lead performance. This is a 90s tinged snapshot of a Finland we haven’t seen on screen before, by a fresh Finnish voice.” Produced by It’s Alive Films (“Euthanizer,” “The Man Who Did Not Want to See Titanic,” “100 Litres of Gold”), Finland’s regular provider of artistically daring and original scripted content, Mohamud’s debut feature marks a milestone as the very first Finnish feature film directed by a black woman.
The feature, which won Best Pitch at the Haugesund New Nordic Films in 2024, is now in post-production with a delivery set for the fall 2027. At Thursday’s awards ceremony, which closed the showcase day at Helsinki Film Festival’s industry confab Finnish Film Affair, the jury also handed out the €3,000 ($3,400) Best Nordic Film Award from the Amos Anderson Fund to the Norwegian suspense drama “11 Hours” by Emilie Beck, best-known for Netflix’s “Royalteen” and TV2 Norway’s hit “Escaping Bolivia.” Inspired by true events, the pic chronicles the traumatic 11 hours that daycare director Sara, her employees and 11 children had to endure when an armed man took them hostage. In other main categories, the new €2,500 ($2,800) Best Genre Project, sponsored by Post Control Helsinki & Angel Films, crowned Teenu Niukkanen’s “Sauna Diplomacy,” the only comedy among eight projects that competed in the high-profile inaugural Nordic Genre Lab.
But the seemingly harmless weekend turns into a game of manipulation, and power games. It’s fuckingly funny – topical, rowdy, thrillingly violent, yet a much-needed guide on how to stand up against tyrants,” said Oskari Huttu, who produces with John Lundsten for Tack Films. The project in development has been pre-bought by Nordisk Film for the Nordics, with production set to kickstart in 2028.
Elsewhere, the €3,000 AVEK Best Documentary Award handed out by IDFA’s Isabel Arrate Fernandez, director Einari Paakkanen and the Estonian Film Institute’s doc specialist Filipp Kruusvall, went to Anna Antsalo (“Walk the Tideline”) for her film “Darkness Counts,” produced by Venla Hellstedt. Reflecting the Finnish Film Affair’s ever-expanding collaborations with key European markets to facilitate networking and business opportunities for Finnish and Nordic professionals, an extra four industry awards were given out on Thursday. Commenting on the overall industry event, Searchlight’s Sydney Brumfield, who was in Helsinki for her Nordic Genre Lab duty, said Finnish Film Affair organizers “did an excellent job in selecting the projects because the quality was amazing.” Her views were shared by Tonje Hardersen, head of the Norwegian Int’l Film Festival.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
