2018 Nordics got Talent - we showcase six to watch

We've selected six emerging talents among 18 graduation film students that attended the 18^th Nordic Talents in Copenhagen (September 5-6), organised by Nordisk Film & TV Fond and the National Film School of Denmark.

FANNY OVESEN - winner of the Nordic Talents Pitch Prize
Graduate from the Norwegian Film School 
Swedish born Ovesen (b.1990) caught the film bug from her father, an arts teacher and amateur filmmaker. She first enrolled at the University of Linköping where she studied Culture, Society and Media. She then freelanced in Stockholm as production coordinator and assistant director before joining the filmmaking course at Lillehammer’s Norwegian Film School.

Her short film Smile (2017) co-directed by Brwa Vahabpour screened at numerous film festivals including Grimstad. Her graduation Film She-pack focuses on a group of young girls at a public pool party. When underdog Ronja challenges the girls’ alpha female in a game of power and dominance, the tension escalates and soon all the girls lose control.

Vision: "I’m into dramas dealing with social and gender issues, integration, personal stories, about people trying to push boundaries. I’m also very keen to give a voice to under-represented groups in society.”

Role models: Andrea Arnold, Gabriela Pichler.

Project pitched: Laura (fiction).
Based on a true story, the film will be an intense road movie with an edge. While on a couch-surfing trip through Europe, 19-year old Laura wakes up, having had sex with a stranger. Torn between guilt and innocence, she sets out on a journey which will influence her self-image and close relationships forever. Ovesen said she will use a documentary approach for her project.

TERESIA FANT - Special Mention Nordic Talents Prize
Graduate from the Norwegian Film School
Finnish born Teresia Fant (b. 1992) studied at Stockholms Filmskolan (2012-2014), before enrolling at the Norwegian Film School’s documentary filmmaking programme in 2015. Her short film Empty cages (Tomma burar) documenting a Swedish animal rights group, screened at the last Göteborg Film Festival.
Her graduation film Viva Løten, a sensitive portrait of two young men and their group of friends in a small town in rural Norway, was awarded a Special Mention at the 2018 Norwegian Film Festival in Haugesund. 

Vision: "I want to find the extraordinary in the ordinary, and tell local stories that people from around the world can relate to."

Role models: Ulrich Seidl, Mia Enberg

Project pitched: Stories from the Shower (documentary-cross media). 
After PE, students gather to change clothes and take showers. But how do they interact and feel when they are naked, in their most vulnerable and fragile self? Following extensive research and interviews, gathered via social media and web outreach, Fant hopes to identify common themes. She plans to use humour as well as choreographed undressing re-enactment scenes to play with youngsters‘ awkwardness and self-awareness. 

BRWA VAHABPOUR - Special Mention Nordic Talents Prize
Graduate from the Norwegian Film School 
Brwa Vahabpour (b. 1993) was born in Iraqi Kurdistan and fled the war-struck country to Norway with his family when he was one-year-old. From an early age, he developed a passion for recording his family and environment with his iPod. He joined Nordland College of Art and Film to study cinematography, but eventually switched to filmmaking and applied to the Norwegian Film School in Lillehammer. His graduation film The Shepherd (Gjeteren) focuses on a Kurdish family, on their way to a wedding, who suddenly hit a deer with their car. The father Aram, is torn between killing and rescuing the injured animal and eventually brings it to a veterinarian surgery. Later it becomes clear how Aram struggles to find a place both in his adoptive country and within his own family.

Vision: “I want to capture the reality that surrounds me and tell stories about displacement, identity, belonging.“

Role models: Christian Mungiu, Asghar Farhadi, Jafar Panahi, Abbas Kiarostami.

Project pitched: Silence (fiction) 
The film is set in the 1980s, in a small Kurdish village. Maria (8) lives in a farm with her parents and siblings. She has a gift for singing and performs in front of big crowds. One day, she catches a seemingly harmless fever, but the infection soon affects her hearing and speaking ability and isolates her from her environment. The coming of age drama told from the protagonist’s point of view, will be based on the director’s own mother´s life story.

YANA MARTSYNKEVYCH
Graduate from Stockholm Academy of Dramatic Arts 
Yana Martsynkevych was born in Ukraine and moved to Sweden a decade ago to join her father and pursue a film education. She took a film course at Stockholm University, then studied filmmaking and film production at Kulturama, before enrolling at the filmmaking course at Stockholm Academy of Dramatic Arts.

Martsynkevych has directed several short films, such as the award-winning Abel (2015) and Half Brother (2017). Her graduation film Lost in Kyiv won the 2018 Filmstaden Culture Foundation scholarship, awarded to promising directors working and living in Stockholm County. The film is inspired by Karin Boye’s 1941 novel 'Adventure in Kandia', turned into modern times Kiev. War photographer Karim Holm (played by Jan Troell’s daughter Johanna Troell) meets a young couple and gets carried away with them, further away from work, and at the same time closer to confronting her inner-self. 

Vision: “I’m interested in search for identity, humanism, strong character-driven stories told from a feministic perspective.”

Role models: Krzysztof Kieślowski, Sofia Coppola.

Project pitched: Princess & Partisan (TV series) 
Young aristocrat Alice moves to Eastern Europe because of love, but finds herself in the crossroads of wars and discovers an unexpected urge to stand up and fight.The series will be inspired by the life of Alice Habsburg, a Swedish aristocrat who became an active WW2 resistance fighter and member of the Polish Home Army.

PHILIP PIAGET AND RIKKE PLANETA
Graduates from The Animation Workshop, Viborg, Denmark 
Mexican-born Philip Piaget moved away from Mexico City to Vancouver, Canada to study 2D animation. He then took an intensive training course in computer animation with Masters from Dreamworks, Pixar, ILM and Weta Digital at Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts in Lucerne, Switzerland. Drawn to European animation, he applied to The Animation Workshop in Viborg to do a BA in Character Animation and just graduated this year with the film Rêverie. Piaget is skilled in 2D animation, 3D animation, character design, layout, storyboarding and editing.

Rêverie is the story of a boy, tormented with grief as the world crumbles around him, who journeys to the limits of his world in a desperate attempt to stop the inescapable beast that stands between him and his flesh and blood. The film is shortlisted for the Danish Robert film awards 2019 in the category Best Short Film/Animation.

Vision: “I want to tell simple but awe-inspiring and universal stories for children and adults, using myths, legends and folktales."

Role models: Michael Dudok de Wit, Hayao Miyazaki. 

Danish director Rikke Planeta developed a talent and passion for drawing and filming from an early age. After secondary education, she took a one-year course in 3D at Copenhagen’s Truemax Academy before enrolling at The Animation Workshop in Viborg from which she graduated early 2018 as a CG artist. She also worked as an intern at the prestigious Aardman Animation Studios .

Her graduation film Bacchus is a hedonistic and fantasy tale, echoing Disney’s Fantasia in its vivacious colour palette and exuberance. Feeling restricted in her routine, a chance encounter leads a young woman into a colourful and mysterious word where you are free to follow your instincts and explore your deepest desires. The film was selected with other Nordic animated shorts to attended a Nordic animation presentation at the Annecy Film Festival and is currently touring world festivals. 

Piaget and Planeta have recently set up their own company Ouros Animation Studio in Viborg, Denmark, to create story-driven projects for film, gaming and VR. 

Project Pitched by Piaget and Planeta: Hygge (animation)
A harsh winter has taken over the merry lives of the forest dwellers. Concerned and restless, Bjørn sets forth to help her friends shed the winter-blues and bring back the light and warmth into their lives, thus discovering hygge. The film about the discovery of ‘hygge’ is meant to celebrate the feeling of warmth and togetherness around Christmas. Piaget and Planeta said: “Scandinavians are inspirational for other nations with their ‘hygge’. Striving to find joy, comfort is something that should be promoted worldwide. We want to create stories that bring a healing factor to the world.”