Susanne Bier's "In a Better World" took home the Oscar for Best Foreign Language film at the Academy Awards ceremony Sunday night in Los Angeles.
Bier's drama about human dilemmas bridging the disparate worlds of a refugee camp in Africa and the idyllic Danish countryside took home top awards in Rome and Sevilla in the fall and won a Golden Globe in January.
Susanne Bier is the third Danish director to win an Oscar for Best Foreign Language film. Previous Danish winners count Gabriel Axel's "Babette's Feast" in 1988 and Bille August's "Pelle the Conqueror" in 1989.
See full list of Danish Oscar nominations and awards
About Bier
Born 1960, Danmark. Graduate of the National Film School of Danmark, 1987. Academy Award semi-finalist and awardwinner at the Munich Film School Festival for her graduation film.
Bier's feature film debut, the Swedish-Danish coproduction, "Freud Leaving Home" (1990) was recipient of international plaudits, as was her Danish-Swedish-Portuguese "Family Matters" (1993). Her next Swedish film "Like It Never was Before" (1995) was recipient of the Critic's Award at Montreal. Following her Danish feature "The One and Only" (1999), bringing in nearly a million admissions in Denmark alone, her reputation as an established filmmaker excelled. Two boxoffice hits followed: the Dogme film "Open Hearts" (2002), selected for San Sebastian, Sundance, and Toronto, and "Brothers" (2004), recipient of the Audience Award at Sundance and Best Acting awards at San Sebastian. US remake by Jim Sheridan in 2009. Oscar-nominated "After the Wedding" (2006) and the US-produced "Things We Lost in the Fire" (2007), starring Halle Berry and Benicio Del Toro, were both hits at the domestic box office.
See factsheets for Susanne Bier's films