Scripted

Pia Tjelta has just been awarded with the Silver Shell for Best Actress at the 66th San Sebastián International Film Festival for her performance in Tuva Novotny’s directorial debut, BLIND SPOT.

Actress Pia Tjelta says to TrustNordisk: “I am endlessly thankful to be recognized in such a humbling setting, amongst so many actresses I deeply admire. I am completely overwhelmed, and most of all thankful towards my writer and director, Tuva Novotny, for letting me take part in a project with a greater mission, which is to work preventatively in mental health matters. This is an enormous honor, and I am honestly very positively shocked”.

Director Tuva Novotny on the award: “I am tremendously happy that Pia’s great talent and hard work is acknowledged and appreciated in such honorable surroundings and I am very excited for her great artistic qualities to be recognized on an international level. The fearless devotion Pia brings with her work is a great gift to me as a writer and director and to the film itself”.

Pia Tjelta is a Norwegian actress with an extensive list of past roles within Nordic films, television and theater. Just last week, Tjelta was given the Norwegian Wenche Foss Honorary Award for her portrayal of the mother, Maria in BLIND SPOT.
Tjelta’s role in BLIND SPOT marks her first internationally awarded performance in a feature film.

BLIND SPOT celebrated it’s international premiere at Toronto International Film Festival in the Discovery section, where it received quite the buzz from international media.
The Hollywood Reporter’s Jordan Mintzer wrote in his review: “The movie is impressively made — one can only imagine the production gymnastics required to keep the camera rolling at all costs — and also intensely performed, with Pia Tjelta leading the cast as a mother whose life is suddenly upended by tragedy”.

Screendaily reviewed the film earlier today, calling the film "a stunning directorial debut" and wrote about Tjelta's performance: "Pia Tjelta gives a performance of emotional distress that’s all the more extraordinary as for much of the time it’s wordless".

BLIND SPOT is the deeply heartrending story of a mother’s struggle to understand the capacity of her teenage daughter’s mental illness. With extreme sensitivity, the film explores the grey zones, or blind spots, in mental illness that are hard to discover as a parent or society, while simultaneously problematizing present-day ideals that seem only to be built around happiness and success. How do we open up about difficult thoughts and problems, when perfection is the only thing one is expected to project to the outside world?

Tuva Novotny is an internationally acclaimed actress, who has received several awards for her acting performances, amongst others the Shooting Star at Berlin International Film Festival. Most recently she starred in the Netflix sci-fi-thriller ANNIHILATION alongside Natalie Portman and BORG MCENROE with Shia LaBeouf and Stellan Skarsgård. This is the first time that Tuva Novotny takes on directing but already she shows huge promise and talent.

Blind Spot is produced by Elisabeth Kvithyll for Nordisk Film Production Norway in co-production with René Ezra and Matilda Appelin Nordisk Film Production in Denmark with support from the Norwegian Film Institute and Nordisk Film & TV Fond. In association with NRK, Nordisk Film Distribution and TrustNordisk.