Nordic Council Film Prize nominees include Vinterberg, Kari

Five Nordic films, including Danish director Thomas Vinterberg’s Submarino, Finnish directors Joonas Berghäll and Mika Hotakainen’s Steam of Life (Miesten vuoro), Icelandic director Dagur Kári’s The Good Heart, Norwegian director Sara Johnsen’s Upperdog, and Swedish Tarik Saleh’s Metropia, will compete for the Nordic Council Film Prize 2010. The largest Scandinavian film award comes with a $60,000 (DKK 350,000) cheque, to be shared by the winning film’s director, scriptwriter and producer.

The nominations were announced yesterday (Aug 24) by the Nordic Film & TV Fond, which manages the award.

“The Nordic Council Film Prize is being awarded for the seventh time, and it is very gratifying to see that once again we are able to gather a field of five very different films of high artistic and international quality,” said the fund’s CEO Hanne Palmqvist. “Despite our small language area, new films are produced every year, making their mark extremely well both within and outside the Nordic countries. This year’s nominated film have been screened at major international festivals such as Berlin, Venice and Toronto and have subsequently been sold widely abroad.”

The winners will be announced on Oct 20, and they will receive the prize on Nov 2 during the Nordic Council’s session in Reykjavik.

Vinterberg’s Danish nominée, Submarino, which marks his return to local and simpler filmmaking, follows the reunion of two brothers – one is a single father junkie, the other is drenched in alcohol and violence. It was selected for competition in Berlin.

Steam of Life – the Finnish entry – is a documentary shot by naked directors and crew in saunas all over Finland, explores the perception of Finns as uncommunicative and unemotional persons. It has been awarded in Tampere, Nyon, Tel Aviv and Warsaw.

Shot in English with an international cast, Kari’s Icelandic contribution, The Good Heart, was aimed ”to combine two opposite formats, and become a broth of the elements I love in the arthouse film and the sitcom.” It was launched at last year’s Toronto Film Festival.

The Norwegian competitor, Upperdog, was premièred at the Norwegian International Film Festival in Haugesund 2009; last week Johnsen’s film received five Amandas – Norway’s national film prize. It also scooped first prize at  the Nordic Film Festival in Rouen.

A hybrid of animation and live action, the Swedish entry, Metropia is the first feature made with a new digital technique, which took Tarek six years to develop. The film won the Future Digital Film Award in Venice 2009 and has travelled another 45 international showcases.

Last year’s winner was Lars von Trier’s Anti-christ.