Special mention in Italy

Sparrows by Rúnar Rúnarsson was awarded a special mention by the Jury at the 10th Filmfestival del Garda  

Iceland submits SPARROWS for Best Foreign Language Film Oscar

The Icelandic Film and TV Academy has selected Rúnar Rúnarsson‘s Sparrows as Iceland‘s entry for the 2017 Best Foreign Language Film Oscar. Rúnarsson has previously had his short film The Last Farm nominated for Best Live Action Short Film Oscar in 2006.
Sparrows was written and directed by Rúnar Rúnarsson. It stars Atli Óskar Fjalarsson, Ingvar E. Sigurdsson, Rakel Björk Björnsdóttir and Kristbjörg Kjeld. It‘s score was composed by Kjartan Sveinsson and the film was produced by Nimbus Iceland and Pegasus Pictures. International sales are handled by Versatile Films.  Sparrows has had a strong festival run. The film had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2015 and has since won a total of 20 international awards, including the Golden Shell award for Best Film at the San Sebastián International Film Festival

Sparrows awarded in Frankfurt

The jury, that is made up equally of young film enthusiasts and film industry professionals, gave SPARROWS the award for the Best Feature Film 13+ at  the 39th LUCAS – International Festival for Young Filmlovers (18th-25th September 2016).

The actress Rakel Björk Björnsdóttir was in Frankfurt on behalf of the film.

SPARROWS makes selection list for European Film Awards

The European Film Academy has announced the 50 films that are recommended for nominations for the European Film Awards 2016. Among them is Rúnar Rúnarsson‘s Sparrows.

The following five films have been nominated for the Nordic Council Film Prize 2016.

Under sandet (Land of Mine) – dir.: Mart­in Zand­vliet
Hymyilevä mies (The Happiest Day in the Life of Olli Mäki) – dir.: Juho Kuosmanen 
Þrestir (Sparrows) – dir.: Rúnar Rúnarsson
Louder than Bombs – dir.: Joachim Trier
Efterskalv (The Here After) – dir.: Magnus van Horn

This is the thirteenth time that the Nordic Council Film Prize will be awarded.  The winners of the Nordic Council’s prizes will be announced and awarded at the DR Concert Hall in Copenhagen on 1 November.

Grand Prix / Lessinia d'oro

The International jury of the 22^nd Film Festival della Lessinia in Italy awarded the Grand Prix / Lessinia d'oro to “Sparrows” by Rúnar Rúnarsson.

The composer of the film, Kjartan Sveinsson accepted the awards on behalf of the film at the closing ceremony.

Official Selection in Jerusalem

The 33rd Jerusalem Film Festival (July 7-17) is to include a new international competition strand.
Jerusalem has confirmed that it has already locked in the first two titles for the new competition, Icelandic director Rúnar Rúnarsson’s San Sebastian winner Sparrows, and Danish Oscar contender A War by Tobias Lindholm.
Overall, the new competitive section will showcase around 10 carefully chosen feature films and devote itself to presenting their Israeli premieres.
JFF artistic director Elad Samorzik noted that the new competition intends to screen films from all different countries and of all different cinematic persuasions, and that quality and artistic distinction would be the main criteria for selection.
Samorzik also specified that, starting at the Berlin Film Festival, he would be on the lookout for films with a proven track record on the international festival circuit and with audiences.
Noa Regev, director of both the Jerusalem Cinematheque and the Jerusalem Film Festival, stated: “International attendance is up in the last few years, and alongside that we’re seeking out new opportunities to add to the already significant body of prize categories.
“We’re really excited about what this means for the overall diversity and strength of the official selection and the compelling sidebar offerings we are currently expanding.”

Special Jury Award at Transilvania International Film Festival

Sparrows, the new feature from writer/director Rúnar Rúnarsson, won the Special Jury Award at the Transilvania International Film Festival in Cluj-Napoca, Romania. Sparrows is in the middle of a strong festival run. The film had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in September and shortly thereafter won the Golden Shell award for Best Film at the San Sebastián International Film Festival in Spain. It has also won for Best Film in the 1-2 Competition at the Warsaw Internatioanl Film Festival. In total, the film has won 17 international awards. 

                                            Rúnar Rúnarsson with Wieland Speck at TIFF

International Competition in Edinburgh

The line-up for the 70^th Edinburgh International Film Festival (EIFF) has been unveiled this morning by artistic director Mark Adams and will take place June 15-26.
The competitive international competition highlights filmmaking from around the world that EIFF programmers term “imaginative, innovative and deserving of wider recognition”. All are UK premieres, except Bahman Naman and The Fundamentals Of Caring, which are European premireres. Titles include:

• The Actor, Satoko Yokohama (Jap)
• Bahman Naman, Q (Qaushiq Mukherjee) (Ind)
• A Conspiracy Of Faith, Hans Petter Moland (Den-Ger-Nor)
• The Fundamentals Of Caring, Rob Burnett (US)
• Go Home, Jihane Chouaib (Fra-Swi-Bel)
• Halal Love (And Sex), Assad Fouladkar (Ger-Leb)
• Hunt For The Wilderpeople, Taika Waititi (NZ)
• The Lure, Agnieszka Smoczynska (Pol)
• Saint Amour, Benoit Delepine, Gustave Kerven (Fra-Bel)
• Sand Storm, Elite Zexer (Isr)
• Sparrows, Runar Runarsson (Ice-Den-Cro)
• Suntan, Argyris Papadimitropoulos (Gre)

OFFICIAL SELECTION IN CLUJ

Sparrows by Runar Runarsson has been selected for The Official Competition of Transilvania International Film Festival (May 27-June 5)
more info

OFFICIAL SELECTION

The Seattle International Film Festival, the largest and most highly attended festival in the United States, announced today the complete lineup of films, guests, and events for the 42nd annual 25-day Festival (May 19 - June 12, 2016).
“This year’s Festival is bursting at the seams with extraordinary talent and revelatory, exciting stories from all over the world,” says Carl Spence, SIFF Festival Director and Chief Curator. “We have more World, North American, and US premieres than ever before, as always bringing Seattle audiences the first opportunity to experience cinematic discoveries and essential masterpieces from all points of view.”
Sparrows by Runar Runarsson is among 13 films slected to the SIFF’s longstanding juried competitions for New Directors. more info

The French Trailer

ASC Distribution that are releasing Runar Runarsson Sparrows in France on july 13th. have launched the French trailer for the film  www.ascdistribution.com

Hungarian release the 21. April

The Sparrows poster for the Hungarian release on 21st of April by Cinefil Co / Magyarország

Official Selection in Valence

Sparrows has been selected for the International competition of the 19th Le Festival International des Scénaristes 2016 that takes place in Valence / France. more info

France release on July 13th

ASC Distribution are handling the french rights to release Runar Runnarsson's Sparrows in France on july 13th. www.ascdistribution.com

Sparrows in Mexico

The Mexican distribution company Alphaville Cinema has secured the local rights for Sparrows. Its distributed under the name "Despegando a la Vida"

THE WINNER IN PRAGUE

Sparrows was this evening announced the winner of the 23th INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL PRAGUE - FEBIOFEST by the jury.
More info

Official Selection in Lucca

Sparrows has been selected for the International competition of Lucca Film Festival that takes place between the 3rd and the 10th of April. This will be the Italian premiere. More info

Hungarian release the 21. April

Sparrows has a Hungarian release the 21st of April by Cinefil Co / Magyarország More info

Grand Prix in Mamers

The Jury of the 29th edition of the European Film Festival in Mamers awarded the Grand prix for the best film to Sparrows. More info

Official Selection in Prague

Sparrows has been selected for The New Europe Competition at The 13th Prague International Film Festival – Febiofest
Info

Official selection in Minneapolis

Sparrows by Rúnar Rúnarsson has been selected for the Emerging Filmmaker competition at the Minneapolis St. Paul International Film Festival (MSPIFF), which celebrates its 35th anniversary this year, today announces its full slate of films for the festival, which runs April 7-April 23.
info

18th Wisconsin Film Festival

Sparrows will be screened in the New World cinema section at the 18th Wisconsin Film Festival 
More info

Le Festival Cinéma d’Alès

Sparrows has been selected for Le Festival Cinéma d’Alès – Itinérances more info

Sparrows by Rúnar Rúnarsson, an Icelandic-Danish-Croatian co-production, will be screened in the ‘Spotlight on Iceland’ programme at the 20th Sofia International Film Festival in a section could which will be held from March 10th to 20th in Bulgaria’s capital.
more info

Official Selection in Mamers

Sparrows will be in the main competition at this year’s MAMERS en MARS European Film Festival, which takes place between the 18th - 20st of mars.
more info

The Golden Taiga Award

Sparrows by Rúnar Rúnarsson was selected the winner of the "Golden Taiga", the main award of the 14th International film festival “Spirit of fire”, held in in the city of Khanty-Mansiysk in Siberia, Russia. 

THE FIPRESCI PRIZE IN GÖTEBORG

This year’s FIPRESCI award at the Göteborg Film Festival goes to Rúnar Rúnarsson for Sparrows. The prize is handed out by the International Federation of Film Critics and goes to one of the films in the competition Dragon Award Best Nordic Film.
The jury’s motivation: The award goes to an honest, unpredictable and beautifully crafted film about adolescents growing up in a small community subject to generational clashes. The winner of The Fipresci Award 2016 is Sparrows by Rúnar Rúnarsson.

The jury included Blagoja Kunovski (Macedonia), Maria Ulfsak-Seripova (Estonia) and Jon Asp (Sweden). 
More info

Gala in Istanbul

The 15th Istanbul Independent Film Festival has chosen Sparrows for their Gala section that presents some of the most exciting and most talked about films of the year.
More info

Scope100 winners picked by audiences

Scope100, a distribution project developed by Poland’s Gutek Film and Festival Scope, intended to rethink the acquisition and release processes for independent European films and stimulate the audience, has just announced the winning films from its partnered territories. In each country, 100 active film lovers were chosen to build the Scope100 community, watch ten carefully selected films online and vote in each country for the best one, which will then be released. Scope100 is an initiative developed in collaboration with Aerofilms (CzechRepublic),Stadtkino (Austria), Imagine (Belgium), Arthaus (Norway) and Cinefil Co (Hungary) and supported by the EU's Creative Europe Audience Development. After screening the films for a month, viewers are fully engaged in discussing and influencing marketing campaigns – trailers, loglines and bold original initiatives. Many of them offered will act as “film ambassadors”, cooperate with local media and introduce the winning film to the general public at preview screenings. Graphic designers among the audience are working on poster designs, which will be submitted to the producers, while bloggers will have an opportunity to conduct interviews with directors. The theatrical releases are planned for the coming month of June. Sparrows did well in the three countries that the film was available for. It was selected by the viewers of Norway and Hungary but where runners up in Belgium.
More info

Official Selection in Göteborg

Göteborg Film Festival has announced the eight films competing for the Dragon Award for Best Nordic film are:

• The Yard by Måns Månsson (Sweden)
• Land of Mine by Martin Zandvliet (Denmark)
• Sparrows by Rúnar Rúnarsson (Iceland)
• A War by Tobias Lindholm (Denmark)
• Granny’s Dancing on the Table by Hanna Sköld (Sweden)
• The Mine by Aleksi Salmenperä (Finland)
• The Model by Mads Matthiesen (Denmark)
• Welcome to Norway! by Rune Denstad Langlo (Norway)

More info

Santa Barbara International Film Festival

The Santa Barbara International Film Festival (SBIFF), presented by UGG, announced today that Sparrows was apart of the highly-anticipated line-up for the 31st edition, which will run February 3rd to February 13th, 201
More info

Sparrows wins big in Les Arcs

At the closing ceremony at The Les Arcs European Film Festival sparrows was honored with the main award of the festiva,The Crystal arrow. On top of that did the film receive The Press Prize ,The prize for Best Cinematography has been awarded to Sophia Olsson for Sparrows and the award for best actor has been given to the Sparrows Atli Óskar Fjalarsson.‪#‎icelandicnewwave‬
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Atli a shooting star in Berlin

The European Film Promotion (EFP) has revealed the ten young actors that it has selected for the 2016 European Shooting Stars at the 2016 Berlinale.

The line-up for the 19th edition of Shooting Stars - with their nominated films - is as follows:

Belgium: Martha Canga Antonio (Black)

Croatia: Tihana Lazović (The High Sun)

France: Lou de Laâge (The Wait)

Germany: Jella Haase (Four Kings)

Spain: María Valverde (Exodus)

Iceland: Atli Óskar Fjalarsson (Sparrows)

Italy: Sara Serraiocco (Chlorine)

Netherlands: Reinout Scholten van Aschat (Beyond Sleep)

Greece: Daphné Patakia (Interruption)

Switzerland: Kacey Mottet Klein (Keeper)

Artistic Achievement Award in Thessaloniki

Sophia Olsson DOP and Rúnar Rúnarsson director received The Artistic Achievement Award at the 6th Thessaloniki International Film Festival for their work on the film Sparrows

more info

A triumph in Mostra

The film "Sparrows" by the Danish / Icelandic director Rúnar Rúnarsson, was the big winner of the 39th the São Paulo International Film Festival.
"Sparrows" was awarded the jury prize for best film and also the best screenplay, given by the Association of Film Authors.

Member of the international jury, the actress Geraldine Chaplin described "Sparrows" as a devastating work about coexistence between a teenager and his estranged father.
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Official Competition in Les Arcs

  

  A tempting seventh edition for Les Arcs

by Fabien Lemercier / cineuropa

04/11/2015 - The Les Arcs European Film Festival has unveiled a tantalising programme for its seventh edition, which will take place from 12-19 December 2015

Very popular with European industry professionals and a highly effective springboard for launching co-productions and promoting movies (as proven by recent titles Son of Saul [+],Sparrows [+] and The High Sun [+], all of which were funnelled through the alpine resort at one stage or another of their production process), the Les Arcs European Film Festival has revealed the mouth-watering programme for its seventh edition (12-19 December 2015).

Selected by artistic director Frédéric Boyer, the features in competition for the Crystal Arrow 2015 include Sparrows by Icelandic director Rúnar Rúnarsson (which won at San Sebastián), Chevalier [+]by Greek filmmaker Athina Rachel Tsangari (unveiled in competition at Locarno, going on to win awards at London and Sarajevo), Venice competition entries A Bigger Splash [+] by Italy’s Luca Guadagnino and 11 Minutes [+] byJerzy Skolimowki, Family Film [+] by Slovenia’s Olmo Omerzu, and four titles that turned a lot of heads at Toronto: Bang Gang (A Modern Love Story) by French director Eva Husson (read the article), The Ardennes [+] by Belgian filmmaker Robin Pront, the British-Franco-Belgian film Couple in a Hole [+] by Tom Geens (which won at Dinard) and the French production Parisienne by Lebanese director Danielle Arbid (read the article). We should also point out that a tenth movie is due to round off the competition shortly. MORO INFO

Closing film of Scanorama

Sparrows by Runar Runarsson will be the closing film of European Film Forum Scanorama

Moro info 

Official selection

Sparrows will be in the main competition at this year’s Thessaloniki International Film Festival, which takes place between the 6 -15 of November
More info

Competition in Tallinn

Sparrows has been selected to the competition the 15th edition of  Just film festival that will be held from 13-22 November 2015 in Tallinn
more info

Sparrows will be screened at the 29th Braunschweig International Film Festival (2.-8. November). More info

The Zagreb premiere in 13th ZFF’s competition

Sparrows has been selected for the competition of the 13th Zagreb Film Festival – 14-22 November 2015. More info

Official competition

Sparrows has been selected for the official competition at 17th Bratislava International Film Festival. More info

SPARROWS wins at Chicago International Film Festival

Sparrows, Rúnar Rúnarsson's most recent feature, has won the Silver Hugo award in the New Directors competition at the 51st Chicago International Film Festival. This continues a strong opening festival run for Sparrows. It recently won the Golden Shell award for Best Film at the San Sebastián International Film Festival and best film in the 1-2 Competition at the Warsaw Film Festival, following its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in September.

More info

Kyiv International Film Festival Molodist

"Festival of Festivals” is a traditional Molodist program, which includes this year’s prize winners at the biggest festivals in the world" The program will open with “Dheepan” by the cult French director Jacques Audiard - winner of the “Golden Palm” at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. "

“Aferim!” by Radu Jude won in the category “Best Director” at this year’s Berlinale. 

“Me and Earl and the Dying Girl” by Alfonso Gomez-Rejon (USA), winner of the Grand Jury Prize and the Audience Award at the Sundance International Film Festival. 

“Bob and the Trees” by Diego Ongaro received the Grand Prix at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival. 

“Mustang” by Deniz Gamze Ergüven was presented in the “Directors forthnight” at the Cannes Film Festival, where it received aEuropa Cinemas Label Award.

The second feature film by Rúnar Rúnarsson “Sparrows” graces this year’s “Festival of Festivals” as a winner of the San Sebastian Festival. Some time ago Rúnarsson debuted at Molodist with his film “Volcano”.

More info

Sparrows by Rúnar Rúnarsson is in the narrative film competition of the 57^th Nordic Film Days in Lübeck. More info

Competition in São Paulo

Sparrows by Runar Runarsson has been selected for the New Directors Competition of the 39th São Paulo International Film Festival that takes place between October 22nd and November 4th.

The screenings dates are:

Day 26/10

19:30 - ESPAÇO ITAÚ DE CINEMA - FREI CANECA 3

Day 27/10

22:00 - ESPAÇO ITAÚ DE CINEMA - FREI CANECA 2

Day 28/10

17:15 - CINESESC

Day 29/10

16:20 - CINEARTE 1

Day 01/11

19:45 - ESPAÇO ITAÚ DE CINEMA - FREI CANECA 1

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Winner of 1-2 Competition in Warsaw

 The Jury members of 1-2 Competition at the 31st Warsaw Film Festival: Katarzyna Jungowska (Poland), Zornitsa Sophia (Bulgaria), Elad Keidan (Israel) gave the award to:

SPARROWS / WRÓBLE, dir. Rúnar Rúnarsson (Iceland, Denmark, Croatia)
"For it's masterfully and poetically crafted journey of an anti-hero, up to an unforgettable humanistic ending."

 More info

Sparrows is a part of a Icelandic focus on the festival
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