All time high Nordic entries in Cannes Official Selection

Only ten months after the Nordic region celebrated a bumper year in Cannes, the Nordics are back with a record three features among 18 entries selected for the main competition: Sweden’s Triangle of Sadness by Palme d’or winner Ruben Östlund, Boy from Heaven by Tarik Saleh, and Denmark's Holy Spider by Ali Abbasi.

Another two Nordic films are among 15 titles competing at Un Certain Regard, a section dedicated to innovative works by rising talents: Denmark’s Godland by Hlynur Pálmason and Norway’s Sick of Myself by Kristoffer Borgli.

Here is the rundown of the Nordic entries:

• Triangle of Sadness written and directed by Ruben Östlund (SE/FR/DE/UK)
  Produced by Plattform Produktion’s Erik Hemmendorff and Coproduction Office’s Philippe Bober.
  
  Östlund’s first English-language feature is a politically-charged satire set in the fashion industry.
  
  Rising acting talents Harris Dickinson (Maleficient: Mistress of Evil) and South Africa’s Charbi Dean (Black Lighting) play the title roles as Carl and Yaya, two young models who accept to board a luxury yacht, hoping to reanimate their declining careers. When the Marxist captain (Woody Harrelson) sets out to punish his privileged passengers by staging a grand dinner during a violent storm, provoking sea sickness and food poisoning, the cruise is transformed into a nightmare metaphor for the end of Western civilisation. In the aftermath, a number of passengers are washed up on a deserted island. In the struggle for survival, the social hierarchies are turned upside down and a middle-aged Filipino maid has the upper hand.
  
  At a 2019 Film i Väst press conference in Cannes (CLICK HERE), Östlund said his intention with the film is to “reflect on how economy has an influence on our behaviour.”
  
  The film was backed by Film i Väst, Essential Films, SVT, BBC Films, Arte France Cinéma, ZDF/Arte, TRT, Eurimages, BFI, Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg, the Danish Film Institute, Hamburg Film Fund and Nordisk Film & TV Fond.
  
  Nordic distributor SF Studios will release the film in Sweden September 2, 2022. Coproduction Office handles world sales.

• Boy from Heaven written and directed by Tarik Saleh (SE/FR/FI/DK)
  Produced by Kristina Åberg and Fredrik Zander for Sweden's ATMO.
  
  After his multi-awarded The Nile Hilton Incident, Egyptian/Swedish Saleh’s second film exploring the modern Arabic world, is a political thriller set in the prestigious Al-Azhar University in Cairo. When Sheikh Al-Azhar, the highest authority in Sunni Islam suddenly dies, a power struggle starts to replace him. At State Security, investigator Ibrahim has been ordered to make sure it will be the Grand Imam backed by the government. When his informant inside Al-Azhar gets brutally murdered, Ibrahim needs a replacement, someone without connections or contacts. Adam - the son of a fisherman, just granted a scholarship at Al-Azhar, perfectly fits the part.
  
  In the title roles are Fares Fares as Ibrahim and Tawfeek Barhon as Adam.
  
  The film was co-produced by Bufo (Finland), Memento Production (France), Denmark’s Final Cut for Real, Film i Väst, SVT, Haymaker, Mikael Ahlström Films, ARTE France Cinéma, with support among others from the Swedish Film Institute, Eurimages, Canal+, the CNC, Finnish Film Foundation, Business Finland and the Danish Film Institute.
  
  Memento International handles global sales and TriArt the Swedish theatrical release.

• Holy Spider directed by Ali Abbasi (DK/DE/SE/FR)
  Based on a script by Abbasi and Afshi Kamran Bahrami.
  Produced by Jacob Jarek for Denmark’s Profile Pictures, with Sol Bondy for One Two Films, Germany.
  
  Iranian-born Copenhagen-based Abbasi will be returning to Cannes four years after he won the Un Certain Regard Prize for the genre movie Border.
  
  In Holy Spider, a journalist descends into the dark underbelly of the Iranian holy city of Mashhad, as she investigates the serial killings of sex workers by the so called "Spider Killer", who believes he is cleansing the streets of sinners.
  
  In the title roles are Mehdi Bajestani, Zar Amir Ebrahimi, Arash Ashtiani and Forouzan Jamshidnejad.
  
  The film was co-produced by Nordisk Film Production AB, Wild Bunch International, Film i Väst, Why Not Productions, ZDF/ARTE, ARTE France Cinéma. It received co-financing from DR, SVT, The Imaginarium Films, Rotor Film, support from The Danish Film Institute, Eurimages, Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg, FFA Filmförderungsanstalt, DFFF, the Swedish Film Institute, Nordisk Film & TV Fond, and MOIN Filmförderung Hamburg Schleswig-Holstein
  
  Camera Film will handle the Danish theatrical release and TriArt the Swedish release. Wild Bunch is in charge of world sales.

• Godland written and directed by Hlynur Pálmason (DK/IS/SE/FR)
  Produced by Katrin Pors, Mikkel Jersin and Eva Jakobsen for Denmark’s Snowglobe.
  
  Iceland’s top director Pálmason was at Cannes's Critics’ Week 2019 with his acclaimed feature A White, White Day, for which Ingvar Sigurdsson won the Louis Roederer Foundation Rising Star Award. The Icelandic actor stars again in Godland, together with Elliott Crosset Hove, multi-awarded for Pálmason’s Winter Brothers.
  
  The story is set in the late 19th century. A young Danish priest travels to a remote part of Iceland to build a church and photograph its people. But the deeper he goes into the unforgiving landscape, the more he strays from his purpose, the mission and morality.
  
  The film was produced in collaboration with Anton Máni Svansson at Iceland’s Join Motion Pictures, in co-production with Sweden’s Garagefilm, Film I Väst and France’s Maneki Films, support among others from the Icelandic Film Centre, the Danish Film Institute, the Swedish Film Institute, the CNC, Nordisk Film & TV Fond, Creative Europe MEDIA, Hornafjörður Municipality, SASS, DR, and RÚV.
  
  Scanbox will handle the Danish release and Sena the Icelandic release. New Europe Film Sales handles sales.

• Sick of Myself written and directed by Kristoffer Borgli (NO/SE)
  Produced by Dyveke Bjørkly Graver and Andrea Berentsen Ottmar for Norway’s Oslo Pictures, behind The Worst Person in the World.
  
  Sick of Myself is the sophomore feature of US-based music video and commercials director Kristoffer Borgli. His debut film Drib premiered at SXSW in 2017.
  
  In the film, Signe (Kristine Kujath Thorp) and Thomas (Eirik Sæther) are in an unhealthy, competitive relationship that takes a vicious turn when Thomas suddenly breaks through as a contemporary artist. In response, Signe makes a desperate attempt to regain her status by creating a new persona hell-bent on attracting attention and sympathy.
  
  The film was co-produced by Sweden’s Garagefilm, Film i Väst, with backing from the Norwegian Film Institute, the Swedish Film Institute, NRK, SVT, Nordisk Film & TV Fond, Eurimages and the Audio and Visual Fund.
  
  Ymer Media will release the film in Norway in the fall 2022, on behalf of Copenhagen-based Scandinavian Film Distribution. World sales are handled by Memento International.

At April 14’s press conference, artistic director Thierry Frémaux said a record 2,200 films were submitted for the Cannes Film Festival unspooling physically May 17-28.
Other Cannes facts worth mentioning are the following .

• Around 50 films are on this year’s programme (with a handful of new titles still to be unveiled). Last year’s record 80 title line-up was an exception, due notably to Covid-19 and the need to boost feature film production.
• So far 35,000 people are accredited, which means the festival is almost back to normal, although Frémaux underlined that “Asia is still slow to come back after the pandemic”.
• Besides Östlund, another three former Palme d’or winners are back in the main competition: Belgium’s Dardenne brothers with Tori & Lokita, Japan’s Kore-eda Hirokazu with Broker and Romania’s Cristian Mungiu with RMN.
• No film backed by global streamers are part of the main competition, but HBO Max’s series Irma Vep from French showrunner Olivier Assayas - with Alicia Vikander in the title role - will be launched at the festival’s Cannes Premiere section.
• Russian filmmaker Kirill Serebrennikov who recently left his native country, will compete for a Palme d’or with Tchaïkovski’s Wife, while two Ukrainian filmmakers have been selected: Sergei Lozbitsa with The Natural History of Destruction (Special Screening) and Maksim Nakonechnyi with Butterfly Vision (Un Certain Regard).

For further details, check: www.festival-Cannes.com.

Cannes' sidebar The Directors Fortnight announced its programme today, which includes 24 features, but none of them produced in the Nordics.
The programme of the Critics' Week will be unveiled tomorrow April 20.