The Church Film Prize of the INTERFILM Jury at the 68th Nordic Film Days in Lübeck went to “Garrat du váimmu” (Brace Your Heart, Sweden, Norway, Iceland, Bulgaria 2026), the story of a young Sámi woman. The film by the Swedish director Amanda Kernell also won the Audience Award. The festival jury awarded the festival’s main prize, the NDR Film Prize, to “No Rest for the Wicked” (Denmark, Faroe Islands, Iceland 2026) by Kasper Kalle from Denmark. The Baltic Film Prize for a Nordic feature film was awarded to “Árru” (Norway, Sweden, Finland 2026) by the Sámi director Elle Sofe Sara.
On 4 November, the Nordic Film Festival opened with the film “Ulya” (original title: Uļa, Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, Poland 2026) by the Latvian director Viesturs Kairišs, which tells the story of the life of basketball legend Uljana Semjonowa. At the opening ceremony, the director of the International Sámi Film Institute, Anna Lajla Utsi, was honoured for her services to Sámi cinema and for raising the profile of indigenous perspectives in film. The retrospective, entitled “Buddenbrooks pre:loaded”, is dedicated to Thomas Mann’s Scandinavian literary influences and their adaptation for the screen.
The INTERFILM Jury awards the INTERFILM Church Film Prize, worth €5,000, to an entry in the feature film competition.