The Festival has become an important platform for domestic distributors, who exhibit a range of new films from Bollywood to J-Horror to festival-goers to both gauge and encourage their likely popularity and profitability in the Danish and wider Scandinavian market; the Audience Prize, selected from amongst recent productions that have no scheduled distribution in Denmark, guarantees funds for the theatrical release of the winning film.

To date, NatFilm Festival tributes have comprised the following:[3] Audience Award The bulk of the festival programme consists of titles not scheduled for Danish distribution, and all participating films without a prior distribution deal for Denmark compete for the Audience Prize of 125.000 DKK (c. $20,000) earmarked for national theatrical release.

Recent recipients of this award include Ten Canoes by Rolf de Heer in 2007 and All My Friends Are Leaving Brisbane by Louise Alston in 2008.

Notable prior recipients of this award include Lars von Trier, Thomas Vinterberg and Natasha Arthy.

Each year a panel of three international judges chooses a winner from around ten nominated films, all debut or second features of selected directors.