Trine Dyrholm was awarded the Silver Bear for Best Actress by Jury President Meryl Streep at the Berlin Film Festival for her role in Thomas Vinterberg's "The Commune" at the Award Ceremony in Berlinale Palast on Saturday night.
Dyrholm is the first Dane to win the award for Best Actress for a Danish production. Mikkel Boe Følsgaard won for Best Actor for "A Royal Affair" in 2012, while Anna Karina won a Silver Bear for Jean-Luc Godard's French "Une femme est une femme" in 1961.
Trine Dyrholm served in the International Jury in 2014. She has previously visited the festival with Pernille Fischer Christensen's "A Soap" and "Someone You Love," Nikolaj Arcel's "A Royal Affair," Anette K. Olesen's "Minor Mishaps," "In Your Hands" and "Little Soldier."
Thomas Vinterberg's "Submarino" was selected for Competition in 2010.
See list of all Danish award-winners in Berlin
In "The Commune," inspired by the director's formative years growing up in an intellectual commune, Dyrholm plays the news anchor, Anna, who is married to the architect, Erik (played by Ulrich Thomsen.) Along with their daughter Freja, they set up a commune in a huge villa in a well-off suburb north of Copenhagen. With the family at the center of the story, we are invited into the dream of a real commune. We participate in the house meetings, dinners and parties. It is friendship, love and togetherness under one roof – until an earth-shattering love affair puts the close-knit community to its greatest test yet.
Trine Dyrholm as Anna in "The Commune." Photo: Christian Geisnæs
"The Commune," originally made for stage at the Burgtheater in Vienna in 2011, is Thomas Vinterberg's ninth feature film, after the UK-produced "Far from the Madding Crowd" (2015) and "The Hunt" (2013), which received an Oscar nomination and three awards at the Cannes Festival. Vinterberg's pivotal "The Celebration" (1998), the first film to be released adhering to the Dogme concept, won the Special Prize of the Jury at Cannes, and was followed by the two English-language films, "It's All About Love" (2003) and "Dear Wendy" (2005).
Read interview with Thomas Vinterberg Memories of Love and Togetherness
Thomas Vinterberg wrote the script with Tobias Lindholm, the director behind the 2016 Oscar-shortlisted "A War," who also co-scripted Vinterberg's "Submarino" (2010) and "The Hunt" (2012). The crew includes director of photography Jesper Tøffner and editors Anne Østerud and Janus Billeskov Jansen. Sisse Graum Jørgensen and Morten Kaufmann produced for Zentropa in collaboration with Toolbox Film with support from the Danish Film Institute. Trustnordisk is handling international sales.
The film was released in Denmark on 14 January.
Awards for Les sauteurs and A Man Returned
Earlier today, Estephan Wagner and Moritz Siebert's documentary "Les Sauteurs" (international title "Those Who Jump") won The Prize of the Ecumenical Jury at the Berlinale. The film follows a young migrant, Abou from Mali, in his persistent attempt to penetrate one of the world's most militarised frontiers. The film is produced by the Danish production company Final Cut for Real.
Read an interview with the directors: Do We Really Need More Fences Like Melilla?
The Danish-Palestinian director Mahdi Fleifel won a Silver Bear for Best Short for "A Man Returned," a British-Dutch-Danish co-production. The 30-minute documentary follows 26-year-old Reda, who lives the refugee camp of Ain El-Helweh in Lebanon.
Read interview with Mahdi Fleifel: Reda Is Getting Married
Berlin International Film Festival
