Film Fest Gent welcomes Hildur Guðnadóttir as Guest of Honour at the 26th World Soundtrack Awards

Guðnadóttir will be attending the World Soundtrack Awards Ceremony & Concert as a Guest of Honour on Saturday 10 October 2026. With her innovative mix of genres and unique experiments, she has demonstrated the importance of screen music and strives to take film music outside of its traditional boundaries. During the ceremony, the Brussels Philharmonic conducted by Dirk Brossé, will perform a selection of her work as a tribute.

Commenting on her invitation as Guest of Honour, Hildur Guðnadóttir says:

Icelandic visionary redefining cinematic sound

Hildur Guðnadóttir was born in Reykjavík and grew up in a musical family. She began playing the cello at the age of five and later studied at the Reykjavík Music Academy. She then went on to study composition and new media at the Iceland Academy of the Arts and the Berlin University of the Arts. She now lives in Berlin.

In 2019, she composed her groundbreaking score for the HBO series Chernobyl. This earned her an Emmy and the title of Television Composer of the Year at the World Soundtrack Awards. She also won the Grammy for Best Score Soundtrack for Visual Media, becoming the first solo female composer ever to win this award.

In 2020 she made history once again with her haunting soundtrack for Joker, Todd Phillips’ dark psychological thriller, becoming the first solo female composer to ever win a Golden Globe for Best Score since the category was founded in 1947. She also won the Critics’ Choice and BAFTA Awards for Best Score that year, followed by her second Grammy in 2021. In doing so, she also set a new record for the highest number of awards ever won by a female composer in a single season.

Award-winning compositions for film, television and games

In recent years, Guðnadóttir has worked on an impressive number of projects: Sicario: Day of the Soldado, Mary Magdalene, Tom of Finland, Journey’s End, the Icelandic series Trapped…

In 2022, she received much acclaim for her work on Sarah Polley’s Women Talking and Todd Field’s TÁR, and she went on to win a Critics’ Choice Award for both. A year later, she composed the music for Kenneth Branagh’s’ A Haunting in Venice, and in 2024 collaborated once again with Todd Phillips on Joker: Folie à Deux. She also co-composed the video game score Battlefield 204 with Sam Slater for Electronic Arts’ immensely successful Battlefield franchise. This score won a Society of Composers & Lyricists Award.

Most recently, she worked on films such as Hedda and 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple by Nia DaCosta. She also composed the music for Maggie Gyllenhaal’s The Bride, which was released in March 2026. In October 2025, she was also awarded a Career Achievement Award at the Zurich Film Festival.

Alongside her work in the film and gaming worlds, she has also released five solo albums: Where To From (2025), Saman (2014), Leyfðu Ljósinu (2012), Without Sinking (2009) and Mount A (2006).

Practical

This year, the WSA Film Music Days will take place from 8 to 10 October 2026. The World Soundtrack Awards Ceremony & Concert will be held on 10 October 2026 at Muziekcentrum de Bijloke in Ghent. Tickets are now available.