As the Cannes Film Festival has announced their sidebar sections as well as additions to the official programme, a further and sizeable batch of Nordic participation has now entered the 2024 edition.

In Un certain regard – indeed opening this very section this year – we find Iceland and the award-laden Rúnar Rúnarsson’s When the Light Breaks (Ljósbrot). This is the fourth feature by the Oscar-nominated director (for the 2008 short Two Birds (Smáfuglar)). Rúnarsson’s debut feature Volcano (Eldfjall) premiered at Cannes’ Directors’ Fortnight in 2011, while his follow-up Sparrows (Þrestir) won the San Sebastián Golden Seashell in 2015. The director’s third feature Echo (Bergmál) gathered a plethora of prizes from Lübeck to Valladolid in 2019, and was nominated for the Nordic Council Film Prize.

When the Light Breaks, shot on 16mm film stock for the right rawness, stars the swiftly budding Euro luminary Elin Hall (Let Me Fall (Lof mér að falla), 2018) as a young art student dealing with the first loss of a loved one. Iceland’s Compass Films produces with co-production by Halibut, Iceland; Revolver, The Netherlands; MP Film, Croatia; and Eaux Vives/Jour2Fête, France. The film is supported by Nordisk Film & TV Fond.

In the Cannes Premieres programme, Everybody Loves Touda by the French-Moroccan director Nabil Ayouch, whose acclaimed Much Loved played at the Directors' Fortnight in 2015, has been selected. The main protagonist is a bar singer and aspiring poetess aiming for a better life for her and her son in contemporary Casablanca. This multi-international co-production includes participation by Denmark’s Snowglobe Films and Norway’s Stær, with main production by Ali n’Productions, also behind the 2022 Cannes hit and subsequent Oscar-shortlisted The Blue Caftan (Le bleu du caftan) by Ayouch’s wife and oft-reccurring creative partner Maryam Touzani.

Cannes’ 2024 Directors’ Fortnight section sports two Nordic co-productions. To a Land Unknown is directed by the Palestinian-born Mahdi Fleifel, currently residing in and working out of Denmark. The story starts out in Athens, where two Palestinian cousins are stranded while trying to get to Germany, and devising a radical plan involving smuggling and hostage-taking in order to succeed. Acclaimed for his documentaries, including the Berlin-awarded A World Not Ours(Alam laysa lana, 2012), Fleifel now presents his first fiction feature. Production is by Inside Out Films and Nakba FilmWorks, UK, with co-production by Salaud Morisset, France; Homemade Films, Greece; and Studio Ruba, the Netherlands.

Playing in the same section is Indian director Karan Kandhari’s Sister Midnight, produced by Wellington Films, UK, with co-production by Filmgate Films and Film i Väst, Sweden and post-production by Filmgate VFX and Can Film, Sweden. According to the Directors’ Fortnight presentation: “We follow the trials and tribulations of Uma, a young, newly-married woman who discovers the reality of married life in a Bombay slum, and whose thirst for vengeance is not about to subside."

The Critics’ Week section includes Julie Keeps Quiet (Julie zwijgt) by Belgian Leonardo Van Dijl, who gained massive kudos for his 2020 short film Stephanie across the world festivals. Van Dijl’s debut feature tells the story of a young tennis prodigy at an elite academy whose coach one day falls under investigation and is suspended, followed by hearings with the players regarding his conduct. Only one of them decides not to speak during the hearings, namely Julie. Belgium’s De Wereldvrede produces, with co-production by the Dardenne brother’s Les Films du Fleuve, Belgium, and Sweden’s Hobab and Film i Väst.

Playing in the Critic’s Week is also The Brink of Dreams, an Egyptian documentary directed through a four-year span by Nada Riyadh and Ayman El Amir, following a group of female street theatre players in the region of the Minya Governorate in Upper Egypt. The project made an immediate impression during its first pitch at the 2020 m:brane sessions in Malmö, where Denmark’s Magma Film subsequently joined in as co-producer, with main production by Egypt’s Felucca Films and additional co-production by Dolce Vita Films in France.

Two brand new Cannes sections are the Immersive Competition and the Cannes Écrans Juniors selection, showcasing feature films of interest to audiences from 13 and up. In this section, Bosnia’s Una Gunjak’s Excursion (Ekskurzija), premiering in Locarno in 2023 and with co-production by Norway’s Mer Film, will be screened. Selected for the Immersive Competition is the Canadian-Swedish-Danish Telos I by Dorotea Saykaly and Emil Dam Seidel.

As previously announced, two Nordic co-productions, Ali Abbasi’s The Apprentice and Magnus von Horn’s The Girl with the Needle (Pigen med nålen), are both selected for the main competition, while Norway’s Halfdan Ullmann Tøndel’s debut feature Armand is being entered in the Un certain regard section. To read full story: CLICK HERE.