Maria Tórgarð wins 2026 mental health award for short film

Filmmaker Maria Tórgarð won the 2026 Mental Health Award for her film Mammuskepilsið on Saturday, KVF reported. The award is presented by Sinnisbati to raise awareness of mental health.

“This was really fantastic,” Tórgarð said after receiving the award. Earlier this year, she won both the Geyti Award and the Audience Award for the film. In September, it was named best short film at a festival in Nuuk, and shortly afterwards received a special honour at Nordisk Panorama in Malmö.

Next week, Tórgarð is due to receive another recognition for the film at a mental health conference in Glasgow. In mid-November, it is scheduled to screen at a documentary film festival in New York. Tórgarð said this recognition felt different because it focused on people moved by the film rather than on the craft of filmmaking.

Mammuskepilsið is a hybrid documentary short about the relationship between Tórgarð and her mother, Katarina Nólsøe, who was diagnosed with mental illness when Tórgarð was nine. Tórgarð said the subject was vulnerable and sensitive, and that she might not have dared to make the film if her mother had not first created a poetry collection and a play about it. She said her mother’s courage helped her find the courage to make the film.

Nólsøe’s poetry collection, Leitanin eftir at verða, was published in 2019.