WeShort Original Anngeerdardardor (The Thief) was selected for the 75th Berlin International Film Festival in the Generation Kplus competition, where it electrified audiences with its fresh voice and raw emotional immediacy. Winner of the Best Danish Fiction Award at Odense IFF 2025, the film is now Oscar-qualified, an extraordinary feat for the first short ever produced in East Greenland.
Born from true events in the remote East Greenlandic town of Tasiilaq, the film features non-professional Greenlandic actors and improvised dialogue, including a young performer from special education whose quiet intensity grounds the story. It becomes a vivid portrait of adolescence at the edge of the world, told by a community rarely seen on-screen.
When Kaali discovers that his beloved sled dog has disappeared, his search ignites a chain reaction through Tasiilaq’s close-knit community. Navigating bullies, he sprints toward a confrontation. Where belonging matters, losing your only friend can break everything.
The director’s goal was to make a film that was genuinely Greenlandic, not like a foreign script shot in Greenland by outsiders, drawing instead on real-life experiences and the performances of local non-professionals. The film touches on the reality of being different, wherever you are in the world.
Director Christoffer Rizvanovic Stenbakken was raised in East Greenland and is now based in Copenhagen, Stenbakken works across film and television with a signature naturalism, observational, character-first, and quietly unsentimental. His acclaimed 2022 DR podcast Tilbage til Tasiilaq documented a return to his birthplace and helped ignite a new appetite for East Greenlandic narratives. He is currently working on a feature also set in East Greenland.
Anngeerdardardor (The Thief) distributed globally by WeShort, the streaming, distribution, and production platform shaping the international appetite for premium short-form cinema. Available worldwide across the web on WeShort.com and its iOS and Android mobile app, WeShort has reached over 1.5 million viewers and continues to push short films into daily viewing culture.
The film is supported by SunTower Entertainment Group, Focus Movie Academy and Napa, The Nordic Institute in Greenland, NunaFonden, Sermeq Fonden, Sermersooq Kommune, Air Greenland & Kraemers Grønlandsfond.
Starring Kamillo Ignatuussen as Kaali, Mikkel Paalu P. Bianco as Bartilaa, and Simujooq Ikila, the film was produced by Asbjørn H. Kelstrup, shot by Philip Peng Rosenthal, edited by Laura Skiöld Østerud, with sound design and original music by Becca Reyes. Casting was led by Alberte Parnuuna, with line production by Carl Artaartík Taunajik Florian Sørensen and Alberte Parnuuna. Executive producer is Maria Møller Christoffersen and creative producer is Michael Noer.
For Greenlandic-funded cinema, the film represents a thrilling shift, one driven by local youth, regional funding, and uncompromising authenticity. It signals a future in which remote voices are no longer peripheral, but headline-worthy.
Sales and festival distribution by Gargantua Film Distribution. You can view the trailer here.
