The first biggest world festival of the year, the Sundance Film Festival in Utah, US (January 15-25, 2009) is going to screen two Nordic documentaries in its World Cinema Documentary programme.
Denmark's top filmmaker Anders Høgsbro Østergaard will have a chance to add another statuette to his already multi-awarded Burma VJ - Reporting from a Closed Country - photo - (Joris Ivens Award 2008 at IDFA and CPH:DOX Best Film). The film produced by Magic Film with support from Nordisk Film & TV Fond, is sold by First Hand Films.
The Swedish film The Queen and I (Drottningen och jag) by Nahid Persson Sarvestani about the director's encounter with Farah Diba, will have its world premiere at Sundance. The film produced by RealReel Doc AB in co-production with SVT, YLE, ARD, and NHK, will be released theatrically in Sweden on February 13, 2009 by Folkets Bio.
The two established Danish filmmakers Nicolas Winding Refn and Lone Scherfig will compete in the World Cinema Dramatic Competition with the English languages films, Bronson and An Education respectively, and the Norwegian horror film Dead Snow by Tommy Wirkola, will be shown in the Midnight Sundance strand. Two Swedish short films (Patrik Eklund's Istället för abracadabra and Jonas Odell's Lögner) as well as the Finnish A Mate (Kaveri) by Teemu Nikki will compete in the official Short Film programme.