Iceland’s Á Annan Veg Wins TFF Torino Film Festival

Á Annan Veg (international title Either Way) by Hafsteinn Gunnar Sigurðsson is the winner of the 29th edition of TFF Torino Film Festival. The festival awarded the film with a prize of € 20.000.

Hafsteinn Gunnar Sigurðsson’s latest work, officially released in Iceland in September 2011, is Icelandic minimalism at best. With skilful use of the language and with dry and witty gags, the film tells the story of two road workers carrying on their lives in the metaphysical setting of Iceland’s barest and most desolate regions. When not encumbered by their routinely tasks, the two men have a lot of time to kill, so they end opening up to each other. They ultimately develop a friendship that will lead them to maturation as human beings.

The film has been described by critics as a work reminiscent of Beckett’s suggestions and the festival’s jury, that counted among its ranks Jerry Schatzberg, Michael Fitzgerald and Valeria Golino, acclaimed it as a the “laconic heir of first period Kaurismäki”. Besides winning the main prize of TFF 2011, the film was also awarded the Holden Prize for the best screenplay and story-telling.

TFF Torino Film Festival was established in 1982 as an event focused on emerging film-makers and it has become over the years one of the most important cinema appointments worldwide. Although not as widely known as the Venice Film Festival, it is regarded in Italy as one of the pillars for the promotion and circulation of films as a form of art and culture. Among the winners of the previous editions, there are notable figures as Hou Hsiao-hsien, Chen Kaige, Amos Gitai, Tsai Ming-liang and David Gordon Green. In recent years especially, the festival acquired international relevance under the direction of renown Italian film-makers Nanni Moretti and Gianni Amelio.