Winner of the 2024 Nordic Council Film Prize

Sex is never just sex. Nowhere is that more evident than in “Sex”, director and screenwriter Dag Johan Haugerud’s clever and philosophically inclined comedy. Here, sex is a prism. Look at individuals through their intense and unexpected sexual experiences, and watch them expand, grasp for a handrail, lose sight of themselves and discover they could be something else, something more, than they had previously thought.

In "Sex", two friends, played with expert poise and timing by Jan Gunnar Røise and Thorbjørn Harr, make such discoveries about themselves. Around them, their city, Oslo, is also changing, constantly being rearranged, rebuilt. Life is fluid and unstable. This is challenging for everyone, not least for spouses and children. Still, there is great warmth to Haugerud’s film, which has a lovely friendship at its core. There is also hilarity, found in the numerous scenes where one party tries to keep a straight face when confronted with another’s bold or intimate revelations.

There is so much food for thought in Haugerud’s script. One aspect is the tension between the physical and the verbal. Sex might also be a refuge from language, and when sex is forced back into words, when it is being retold and analysed, something can be lost. Another aspect is what makes a couple feel close to one another, and what happens when they differ on what that is.

Dag Johan Haugerud has a distinct perspective and style that boldly takes on life’s big questions and conundrums. The title of this film is perhaps typical, grand, and cheeky at the same time. It is a balancing act for which he is truly deserving of this prize.

This is the second time that Haugerud and Motlys have won the Nordic Council Film Prize. Dag Johan Haugerud and Yngve Sæther were awarded the prize in 2022 for "Beware of Children" (Barn).