Woman at War wins prestigious award for director Benedikt Erlingsson, screenwriters Benedikt Erlingsson and Ólafur Egill Egilsson, producers Marianne Slot, Benedikt Erlingsson and Carine Leblanc.

The highly acclaimed film Woman at War received Tuesday night the Nordic Council Film Prize 2018, one of Northern Europe’s most coveted film awards.

The prize endowed with DKK 350,000 is shared between the director, screenwriters and producers, in recognition of film as an art form, based on the collaboration between these main contributors.

Woman at War is about Halla a fifty-year-old independent woman, that behind the scenes of a quiet routine leads a double-life as a passionate environmental activist, secretly waging a one-woman-war on the local aluminium industry. As she plans her biggest and boldest sabotage operation yet, she receives an
unexpected letter that changes everything.

The motivation for the jury 2018’s choice is the following:

"In Woman at War, a big, pressing issue is channeled through a big, unrelenting personality. Halla, the vigilante working secretly to preserve the world’s eco-system, is played magnificently yet unfussily by Halldóra Geirharðsdóttir. When Halla feels a pull which is perhaps even stronger than her idealism, the pull towards having a family, her dilemma is handled deftly and without sentimentality. In fact, director Benedikt Erlingsson, working from a script he co-wrote with Ólafur Egilsson, is as bold as his protagonist. The jury appreciates how he confidently mixes action scenes and intimate moments with atmospheric Verfremdung, placing live musicians in his frames and having them be the interpreters of the moods and feelings of the characters. The result is an exhilarating film, as funny and free-spirited in its handling of geopolitical matters as of the private life of the 48 year old woman that is the unexpected action hero at its core. And yet, the love which is at the centre of it all, for nature and for a lonely child, comes shining through."

Benedikt Erlingsson (b.1969) is a director, writer, actor and producer. He is well-known as a stage director, as well as for his roles in theatre, television series, and film. Erlingsson’s first feature film Of Horses and Men won more than 20 international awards including the Nordic Council Film Prize in 2014.

Woman at War had its world premiere at the Critics’ Week at the Cannes Film Festival in 2018 where it won the SACD Award for Best Screenplay.

Woman at War is the 15th recipient of the Nordic Council Film Prize, the most prestigious film award in the Nordic region and was awarded together with the Nordic Council’s Music Prize, Literature Prize, Youth Literature Prize and Environment Prize, at an awards ceremony held in conjunction with the 70th Session of the Nordic Council in Oslo.

To download the full press release: CLICK HERE.

For further information about the Nordic Council Film Prize, including past nominees and winners: CLICK HERE.