At tonight's awards ceremony at the San Sebastián Film Festival, 'Kalak' took home two major awards from the Competition Jury: The Special Prize with the following motivation "because it takes us into a world we knew absolutely nothing about with surprising and empathetic performances, and with a way of showing the country, its conflicts and its hidden beauty through true cinematographic art" as well as the Jury Award for Best Cinematography which was awarded to DOP Nadim Carlsen.
Director Isabella Eklöf accepted the Cinematography award on behalf of Nadim Carlsen who unfortunately was unable to accept the award in person and Producer Maria Kjeldgaard Møller from Manna Film accepted the Special Jury Award on behalf of the film.
In ‘Kalak’, Jan is on the run from himself after being sexually abused by his father. Living in Greenland with his small family, he yearns to be a part of the open, collectivist culture and become a Kalak, a "dirty Greenlander".
Director Isabella Eklöf had her breakthrough in 2018 with the critically acclaimed debut film ’Holiday’ which premiered in Sundance in 2018 and then travelled the festival circuit extensively and won awards domestically. Nadim Carlsen graduated from The Danish Film School in 2011 and has been Director of Photography on a number of award-winning and critically acclaimed films such as 'Border’, 'Holiday' and 'Holy Spider' as well as selected episodes of the HBO hit 'The Last of Us' which were directed by Ali Abassi. Nadim Carlsen has previously won a Danish Film Critics award for his DOP work on 'Holiday' and an Award from the Danish Film Academy for his DOP work on 'Holy Spider'.
Isabella Eklöf has written the script with med Kim Leine and Sissel Dalsgaard Thomsen and Maria Møller Kjeldgaard has produced for Manna Film with support from The Danish Film Institute. Co-producers include Norwegian Mer Film, Swedish Momento Film and Film i Väst, Finnish MADE, Dutch Lemming Film and Greenlandic Polarama Greenland. Heads of departments include director of photography Nadim Carlsen, production designer Josephine Farsø, sound editor Mark Glynne, costume designer Sascha Valbjørn and Isabella Eklöf working in collaboration with Anna Eborn on the editing.