“Land of Mine” historical drama wins three European Film Awards

PanARMENIAN.Net - Martin Zandvliet’s “Land of Mine”, which opened Toronto’s competitive Platform section, scooped up three of the first seven European Film Awards for below-the-line categories, Variety reports.

“Land of Mine,” a gripping historical drama following a group of young German POWs forced to de-mine Danish beaches after the Axis defeat, earned Camilla Hjelm Knudsen the Carlo di Palma award for best European cinematographer. It also won for costume design (Stefanie Bieker) as well as hair and makeup (Barbara Kreuzer).

The European Film Awards jury said that “Camilla Hjelm Knudsen’s cinematography creates a tension that supports the uniquely suggestive atmosphere of the film with great perfection….

“From the first moment, the visual language captures and impresses the spectator, demonstrating in great subtlety how much composition and lighting can contribute to the dramaturgy of a film and support story and characters in an unobtrusive way,” the jury added.

“Land of Mine” represents Denmark in the foreign-language Oscar race and will be released in the U.S. and Latin America by Sony Pictures Classics.

Other awards went to Thomas Vinterberg’s “The Commune,” which won best editing for Anne Østerud and Janus Billeskov Jansen; Sarah Gavron’s “Suffragette,” which took the production design nod for Alice Normington; Kirill Serebrennikov’s “The Student,” which earned Ilya Demutsky the European composer award; and Jerzy Skolimowski’s “11 Minutes,” which won for best sound design for Radosław Ochnio.

The winners were selected by a seven-member jury composed of Benoît Barouh, production designer; Paco Delgado, costume designer; Martin Gschlacht, cinematographer; Dean Humphreys, sound designer; Era Lapid, editor; Waldemar Pokromski, make-up artist; and Giuliano Taviani, composer.