High profile international buyers expected include The Weinstein Company, Music Box, Magnolia, New Yorker Films from the US, Entertainment One, Soda Pictures from the UK, MFA, Neue Visionen from Germany, Chrysalis Film, Films Distribution from France, plus a handful of new visitors from Turkey (Bir Film), Portugal (Alambique), France (Diaphana) and Slovakia (Film Europe Media Company). Also on the guest list are 23 programmers from major festivals such as Sundance, Tribeca, Berlin, Cannes, Lübeck, Gothenburg and Rome.
New Nordic Films Managing Director Gyda Velvin Myklebust stressed that Norway has the most market screenings (9 out of a total of 25, compared to 5 for Denmark and 5 for Sweden). “This mirrors the strong autumn release schedule in Norway,” she says. “We used to have more Danish films than Norwegian films, but this has reversed over the last few years. I’m also very pleased with the high number of Icelandic films (3).
Ten Works in Progress will be introduced by their respective directors and/or producers. Among those are Palme d’or winning Norwegian director Bobbie Peers with his feature debut Dirk Ohm-The Illusionist Who Disappeared, Swedish director Tarik Saleh (Metropia) with the thriller Tommy, Denmark’s Pernille Fischer Christensen with the drama Someone You Love, and Iceland’s Baldwin Z with Life in a Fish Bowl.
Producers looking for attractive projects to co-produce will be able to choose among 22 projects from the Nordic region, Canada, the UK, Germany, France and Estonia to be pitched at the Nordic Co-production and Financing Market. “This year’s projects are of very high artistic value,” adds Myklebust. “We received as many as 74 applications and unfortunately had to turn down many interesting projects to give enough time for producers to pitch them properly.”
New Nordic Films is unspooling parallel to the 41st Norwegian International Film Festival in Haugesund (August 15-22). It is supported by the Norwegian Ministry of Culture and Church Affairs, Film & Kino, Nordic Council, Nordisk Film & TV Fond and the MEDIA Programme. For further information, contact Gyda Velvin Myklebust (email gyda@kino.no).