The short film Two Birds (original title Smáfuglar) by Icelandic director Rúnar Rúnarsson received its 48th international award at the Archipelago Film Festival in Rome on Thursday and has thus become the most-awarded short film in the world.
“I’m just repeating what I’ve been told, but many experts in the field have told me that Smáfuglar has become the most-awarded short film in history,” Rúnarsson told Fréttabladid.
On Thursday, Two Birds was named Best Film at Archipelago – International Festival of Short Films and New Images. The film premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in May last year and has toured festivals since.
“It would be silly of me to say that I wasn’t proud of this achievement,” Rúnarsson added. The director graduated from the National Film School of Denmark last weekend.
“The lifetime of short films at festivals is two years, so Smáfuglar will retire next year. Until then I’ll follow it to festivals around the world. For example, I’m going to Slovakia [today] to a film festival there,” Rúnarsson added.
The director said he has no lack of projects. “I’m lucky to have dual citizenship as a director. The Danes consider me Danish because I studied here. It’s good because it’s limited how many funds you can get contributions from in each country.”
“I aim at starting shooting a feature-length film in Iceland next summer, and I also have some projects to choose from here in Denmark. I just have to decide which projects to concentrate on,” Rúnarsson concluded.
