Icelandic-Danish collab ‘Virgin Mountain’ lands top prize at Tribeca

There may be something in the water in Denmark that’s brewing success in the film department. The state pulled in most of the top prizes by the jury of the Tribeca Film Festival that took place today Apr. 23, 2015.

‘Virgin Mountain,’ which is an Icelandic-Danish collab, is a Dagur Kari offbeat romance that took top prize for narrative feature, screenplay, and actor. Counterpart production ‘Bridgend,’ which is a Jeppe Ronde film won lead actress, cinematography and editing in the narrative category. ‘Bridgend’ is a narrative feature about a suicide-riddle town by a Danish production company.

Another Danish production that landed a top prize for documentary was ‘Democrats.’ A production where Camilla Nielsson does a breakdown of the defective government in Zimbabwe.

Prizes were distributed Thursday at the film festival’s new location downtown Manhattan. The film festival will run all the way to Sunday Apr. 26, 2015 but the audience awards will be announced on Saturday.

Comedian Gunnar Jonsson is starring as the character ‘Fusi’ in the film ‘Virgin,’ about a large man who lives with him mom and finds an odd romantic chance while taking a line-dancing class. The movie has received excellent reviews for its comedy and adored protagonist. The jury stated, ‘Beyond the deceptively small frame of a mismatched love story, the film deals with the issues of bigotry, loneliness, bullying, mental illness, and ultimately the triumph of the  human spirit and the meaning of love.’

‘Virgin’ does not have distribution in the U.S. as of yet but is looking to copycat the steps of similar Tribeca films that were well received and found substantial business support after being viewed at the festival. Some of these productions included titles such as: ‘City Island,’ the Andy Garcia family comedy and ‘Keep on Keepin on,’ by Clark Terry.

The Tribeca Film Festival will close Saturday night with an anniversary screening of ‘Goodfellas’ and will be hosted by Jon Stewart. However, the winning films will be screened on Sunday.

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