Knut Erik Jensen's documentary Cool and Crazy about a male choir from a remote arctic town took home two Amanda Awards, for best Norwegian film and best documentary at this year's Haugesund Film Festival.
With more than half a million admissions, Cool and Crazy has become the second best attended film of the year in Norway, and the first documentary ever to achieve such results. Now the producers are preparing a submission for the Academy Awards in both foreign language and documentary categories. A follow-up tour of the documentary with the band members was also announced at the festival.
Hildegun Riise won the Best Actress award for her part in Detector, which was also awarded the Best Debut. Mona Hoels Dogme film, Cabin Fever also won two of the main awards: Svein Scharffenberg received the Best Actor award, while actress Kari Simonsen grabbed the Honorary Amanda.
The team behind the low-budget feature film Mongoland received the Golden Clapper Award. Four Seasons directed by Leidulv Risan for national public broadcaster NRK, was chosen as best drama production for television, while Billy Elliot received the Best Foreign Film award.
While the Amanda Awards are given out at the end of the Haugesund festival to Norwegian films from the past year, awards are also given to films screened at the festival itself. The main prize, called the Gjest Baardsen Award went to Danis Tanovic's Bosnian war drama No Man's Land. The second prize, the Gledessprederen Award, went to the Danish dogme film Italian For Beginners. The Audience's Award was given to Jean-Pierre Jeunet's Amelie.
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