A Norwegian film producer was using words like “grand” and “wild” to describe what it was like to win the World Cinema Grand Jury Prize at the prestigious Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah over the weekend. Director Anne Sewitsky’s feature debut won the prize for her film Sykt lykkelig (Happy, Happy).
Producer Synnøve Hørsdal of production company Maipo had to stay home in Norway because she’s eight months pregnant and couldn’t travel to the Sundance Festival, reported newspaper Aftenposten. But Sewitsky, the film’s star Agnes Kittelsen and screen writer Ragnhild Tronvoll were among those there, and Sewitsky could accept the award for the film, which tells the story of a perfect housewife whose troubled marriage sends her to the next-door neighbours and, ultimately, into the arms of infidelity.
The film “found us identifying with characters very different from our own lives,” said juror and Danish director Susanne Bier. Sewitsky was said to “direct delicately, with an eye for signs of relationships faltering and for the space in which new attractions can’t be resisted.”
“Happy Happy” is also competing in the Gothenburg Film Festival this week and will be available at the European Film Market in Berlin.
Another Norwegian film, Trolljegeren about a modern-day Norwegian troll hunter, also won good reviews at the Sundance Film Festival. Sykt lykkelig/Happy Happy was the only Nordic film competing against 14 other international films in the World Cinema Dramatic Competition.
Views and News staff
