“A Royal Affair” period drama wins AFI Fest 2012 audience award

PanARMENIAN.Net - Nikolaj Arcel’s A Royal Affair, Denmark’s submission for the best foreign language film Academy Award, won the audience award in the World Cinema category at AFI Fest 2012. The film stars Alicia Vikander as an 18th century Danish queen who had an affair with the royal physician, played by Mads Mikkelsen, The Hollywood Reporter said.

Audiences awards were also presented to Tobias Lindholm’s A Hijacking, which screened as part of the New Auteurs section; Jason Tippet and Elizabeth Mims’ Young Americans, from the Young Americans section; and David Tosh Gitonga’s Nairobi Half Life, from the Breakthrough section.

Gabriela Pichler’s Eat Sleep Die from Sweden earned the Grand Jury Award in the New Auteurs category, with the jury citing its “sensitive portrait of a young woman fighting to keep her job and her dignity in the globalized economy, driven by an energetic performance from Nermina Lukac,…an extraordinary work accessible to many audiences.”

Grand Jury Awards were also presented to the live action short Introducing: Bobby, directed by Roger Hayn, and the animated short Oh Willy, by Emma De Swaef and Marc Roels.