A Salford University graduate is vying for international recognition after her film was nominated for a prestigious Golden Globe award.
The annual event in Beverly Hills honours the best film and television works from across the planet.
54-year-old Anna Heinamaa wrote The Fencer while working on a Master’s degree in Film Screenwriting at Salford.
Directed by Finland’s Klaus Haro this original biographical story about a famed athlete is based on the true story of Estonian fencing master Endel Nelis.
Nelis fled from his home in Leningrad in the early 1950s to escape Russia’s secret police, later founding an after-school for aspiring young swordsmen.
The inspirational tale has now been nominated for a 2016 Golden Globe in the Best Foreign Language Film category.
If she triumphs, Anna will join the prestigious ranks of previous winners Ang Lee, who won in 2001 for martial arts epic Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, Clint Eastwood, who won in 2006 for Japanese-American war drama Letters from Iwo Jima, and celebrated Austrian screenwriter Michael Haneke, who has won the award twice, for 2009 film The White Ribbon and 2012’s harrowing dementia drama Amour.
Anna said: “It’s a great honour to be nominated for a Golden Globe. I’m hoping that it will make people more aware of the fact that a great screenplay – a well-written heartfelt story – is the foundation that a successful film builds on.
“The programme at Salford took my writing to a whole new level by giving me the tools to understanding what the art of storytelling is all about, so I was thrilled by that experience.”
One of Anna’s former lecturers, Colin Muir, Programme leader for MA Television and Radio Scriptwriting at the University of Salford, added: “Anna studied on the MA for two years and was an analytical, imaginative and dedicated writer.
“The Fencer is one of two film scripts she developed and wrote on the programme. There may well be further success in store for Anna in the future.”
Main image: Production on set with director Klaus Härö and star Liisa Koppel
