ROBOTBROR WINS ECFA AWARD AT THE 41st OULU INTERNATIONAL CHILDREN’S AND YOUTH FILM FESTIVAL

MY ROBOT BROTHER won the European Children’s Film Association (ECFA) award at the 41st Oulu International Children’s and Youth Film Festival in Finland this weekend. 

 

The film is now shortlisted for the award for Best European Children’s Film of the Year which will be handed out during the International Filmfestival Berlin – Berlinale in February 2023. 

 

The ECFA Award was founded by the European Children’s Film Association in 2010. It is given to the best European film in the Children’s Film Competition by the International Jury – festival programmer at the Goldener Spatz and for children’s section at the Nordic Film Days Lübeck Hanna Reifgerst from Germany, managing curator at the Riga International Film Festival Kristine Simsone from Latvia and producer at the Northern Photographic Centre Taija Jyrkäs from Finland.

 

The winner is MY ROBOT BROTHER directed by Frederik Nørgaard.

 

Jury statement: “The winning film takes the audience on a time travel to the near future. Through the script`s creative vision it is rising the question who we are going to be and who we are. Will there be humanoid robots among us during the next decades? What influence will it have on ethics? But the film also deals with everyday matters bringing up topics like family relations and peer pressure. The film has a strong main character who empathetically takes the audience on her journey, balancing technology and humanity. In the end sincere relationships are the ones that matter.”

 

Director Frederik Nørgaard: ”Thank you so much for selecting MY ROBOT BROTHER as one of the ECFA Award candidates of 2022 and for your great and important effort to promote European children’s films. It’s more important than ever before. Streaming services might be an open window to the audience, but it’s unfortunately also a window where the narratives and stories being told become more and more generic and streamlined. And to you dear audience, thank for watching and remember to keep going to the cinema – that is truly where the magic happens.”

 

 

 

A big thanks to the Oulu International Children’s and Youth Film Festival jury as well as to The Danish Film Institute, FilmFyn, our distributor Scanbox and our international sales agent Sola Media, and of course to the director Frederik Nørgaard and the entire crew.