Lone Scherfig's film as director was An Education, adapted by Nick Hornby from Lynn Barber's memoir. An Education received three Academy Award nominations, for Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Actress (Carey Mulligan). Ms. Scherfig was a BAFTA and British Independent Film Award nominee for Best Director, and Ms. Mulligan won both of those Awards for Best Actress.
The movie received many other honors, including winning the World Cinema Audience Award at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival and the Audience Award at the 2009 Mill Valley Film Festival; receiving two Screen Actors Guild Award nominations, for Carey Mulligan's portrayal and for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture (recognizing the entire ensemble); being nominated for four Critics' Choice Movie Awards; and, awarded to Ms. Scherfig, the Spirit Award for Best Foreign Film.
In her native Denmark, she began her career directing award-winning commercials and television dramas. Her first feature as director, The Birthday Trip, was screened at the 1991 Berlin International Film Festival and won several awards at festivals worldwide. Her second feature, On Our Own, won the Grand Prize at the Montreal Film Festival.
Ms. Scherfig next wrote and directed Denmark's fifth official "Dogme" film, Italian for Beginners. It was this feature that brought her to the attention of the worldwide film industry, critics, and moviegoers. At the 2001 Berlin International Film Festival, the film won the Silver Bear Jury Prize for Best Director, the FIPRESCI International Film Critics Award, and the Ecumenical Prize. Additional awards from around the world for the picture included Best Original Screenplay from the Danish Film Academy; the Hamptons International Film Festival's Best Film Audience Award; Best Director, Best Film, and Best Actor (Peter Gantzler) honors at the Valladolid International Film Festival; the People's Choice Award at the Warsaw Film Festival; Best Screenplay and Best Actor awards at the Festival D'Arcachon in France; Best Film at the Paris International Film Festival; and a Goya Award nomination for Best European Film.
Her first English-language film was Wilbur Wants to Kill Himself, which she co-wrote with Anders Thomas Jensen; and which starred Jamie Sives, Shirley Henderson, Adrian Rawlins, and Mads Mikkelsen. Honors for the picture included Best Screenplay at the U.S. Comedy Arts Festival in Aspen; Best Picture at the Skip City Festival in Japan; and four British Independent Film Award nominations, including Best Screenplay. Reteaming with Mr. Jensen, Ms. Scherfig conceived and wrote the characters on which writer/director Andrea Arnold's Red Road was based. Ms. Arnold received the Jury Prize for Best Direction at the 2006 Cannes International Film Festival.
Ms. Scherfig's other features as director include Just Like Home, which reunited her with actor Peter Gantzler and which she co-wrote with Niels Hausgaard.
She is a recipient of Denmark's prestigious Carl Theodor Dreyer Honorary Award.
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