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This year’s winners at Umeå Film Festival!

On Friday evening, Umeå Film Festival presented three awards: Rödspoven, Storspoven, and The School Cinema Audience Award, along with two Special Mentions.

  • Storspoven comes with a grant of 25,000 SEK and is awarded to the best film in the Perspectives from the Northsection.

  • Rödspoven includes a 10,000 SEK grant and is given to a current documentary that addresses an important contemporary issue.

  • Since 2021, we have also awarded The School Cinema Audience Award, where high school students in Umeå vote for their favorite among the Storspoven-nominated films. From 2022 onwards, this award includes a 5,000 SEK grant.

Jury Statements

🏆 Winner of Storspoven 2024: A Moment You Will Remember

This year’s winner is a film that masterfully embraces the art of short film storytelling. The jury was captivated by its exceptional tone and the powerful performances of the actors. Furthermore, the film brilliantly explores a subject that, unfortunately, concerns most parents and children: how do we communicate with each other?

For its tender and ultimately comforting portrayal of a difficult period in life, the winner of Storspoven 2024 is A Moment You Will Remember by Polina Blag.

🎖 Special Mention – Storspoven 2024: Alwadae Lillpite

Through a series of quiet, composed tableaux, this film captures daily life and place with simplicity and intimacy. Without unnecessary embellishment, it beautifully illustrates the essence of compassion and belonging.

The jury’s Special Mention goes to Alwadae Lillpite by Bo Johan Sörensen, a film that, without a single unnecessary word, elegantly and empathetically conveys both warmth and sorrow.

🏆 Winner of Rödspoven 2024: Photophobia

A grand film that, with minimal means, succeeds in conveying the devastating effects of war on the individual and the resourcefulness and solidarity that emerge in times of crisis.

Through the director’s restrained realism—alternating between a static, claustrophobic camera in the Kharkiv subway, where people seek shelter, and sepia-toned laterna magica images from above ground—we are confronted with a deeply absurd, anxiety-inducing, and chaotic reality where the battles are near but never visible.

The film presents an outstanding character study of Nikita and Vika, two lost 12-year-olds who have found each other in the subway station. For those watching this brilliant documentary, the experience is anything but photophobia—which literally means fear of light. Instead, in the underground darkness, glimpses of hope, poetry, joy, and even humoremerge.

🎖 Special Mention – Rödspoven 2024: Wind Has No Tail

We would like to give a Special Mention to the documentary Wind Has No Tail.

With stunning cinematography and deep tenderness, the film depicts the life of a nomadic family in Siberia. Their existence is harsh, yet the parents still find time to read bedtime stories to their children. The youngest daughter, Nika, is soon to leave home for boarding school, marking a painful transition.

The film highlights the oppression of children from minority populations in Russia. The heartbreaking scenes of Nika, crying in Western-style clothing at the boarding school, are impossible to forget.

With this Special Mention, we want to shine a light on a film that allows us to witness Nika’s journey firsthand. What happened to older Sámi generations in Swedish boarding schools is happening in Russia today.