Maria Sødahl’s The Final Resort has clinched the Dragon Award for Finest Nordic Movie on the 2026 Göteborg Movie Competition, which encompasses a prize sum of SEK 400,000, or over $40,000.
The jury — comprising head Joshua Oppenheimer (director, U.S./Denmark) and members Fabrice Aragno (cinematographer/director, Switzerland), Lia Boysen (actor, Sweden), Sanna Lenken (director/screenwriter, Sweden) and Gergely Pálos (cinematographer, Hungary) — said their reasoning: “Right now, as our world suggestions towards fascism and the power-hungry use storytelling to divide humanity into us and them — these worthy of our compassion and people not — cruelty towards the outsider is repeated till we come to see it as regular, then, to our disgrace, as legit — and at last we cease seeing it in any respect.”
“One movie dared to look at, with unblinking honesty, this most necessary ethical and political downside of our instances, and to indicate how the callousness bred by ordinary cruelty diminishes us all, hollowing out {our relationships} — even with our companions and kids,” the assertion continued. “With pitch-perfect performances, a razor-sharp but nuanced script, and never a hint of sentimentality, the movie is a mirror through which we see ourselves with devastating readability: If we refuse to confront our personal complicity within the cruelty unfolding round us proper now, the love we declare to dwell by can’t save us — as a result of the compassion that underpins it’s conditional.”
Producers Thomas Robsahm, Sigurd Mikal Karoliussen and Helena Danielsson shared the prize alongside Sødahl and actor Esben Smed.
Working from Jan. 23 to Feb. 1, the fest’s program lineup featured 266 movies from 76 international locations, together with Kristen Stewart’s directorial debut The Chronology of Water, Chloé Zhao’s Golden Globe-winning Hamnet and Sophy Romvari’s Locarno favourite Blue Heron.
Under are the extra Göteborg winners:
Dragon Award for Finest Appearing
Adam Lundgren, The Quiet Beekeeper
Sven Nykvist Cinematography Award
Louise McLaughlin, Weightless
FIPRESCI Award
Weightless (directed by Emilie Thalund)
Viewers Dragon Award for Finest Nordic Movie
The Quiet Beekeeper (directed by Marcus Carlsson)
Dragon Award for Finest Nordic Documentary
Malandro Moon (directed by Iván Blanco)
The Ingmar Bergman Debut Award
Bouchra (directed by Meriem Bennani and Orian Barki)
Dragon Award for Finest Worldwide Movie
Calle Malaga (directed by Maryam Touzani)
Youth Jury Dragon Award
My Father’s Shadow (directed by Akinola Davies Jr.)
Draken Movie Award
Uncle Ali and I (directed by Shahab Mehrabi)
Honorary Dragon Award
Agnieszka Holland
Nordic Honorary Dragon Award
Noomi Rapace
Startsladden — Finest Swedish Brief
All That Stays of Me (directed by Christer Wahlberg)
Startsladden Cinematography Award
Christine Leuhusen, With out Kelly
Startsladden — Viewers Award
All That Stays of Me
The Church of Sweden Angelos Movie Award
The Patron (directed by Julia Thelin)
The Nordic Collection Script Award
Ingeborg Topsøe, Secrets and techniques We Hold
Artistic Braveness Award
Blood Cruise (produced by Alexander Rönnberg from Northern Fableand and Will Tennant from Imaginarium Productions, commissioned by Johanna Gårdare and Sonja Nilsson Hermele from SVT)
Nordic Movie Market Awards
Out of Athens (directed by Badrudin Ga’ur)
Chentian (directed by Suha Arraf)
Mai Zetterling Grant (offered by Swedish Arts Grants Committee)
Peter Larsson, animator/filmmaker
