Göteborg unveils full programme for hybrid Nordic Film Market

After last year’s full virtual edition, the 23^rd Nordic Film Market will be staged both on site-with Covid-19 measures in place - and in a digital format.

Cia Edström said interest from industry delegates to attend in person has been huge, in the wake of Sundance, Rotterdam and Berlin’s European Film Market’s decision to go online. But due to omicron’s surge, the event has been forced to limit the numbers to just over 250 attendance. “It’s been very difficult to say no to many people, but our priority is to guarantee a safe event,” explained Edström.

For the ‘lucky’ delegates able to share the pleasure of cinema screenings in Göteborg, and for programmers, buyers and sales agents with an online registration, the programme of 14 completed Nordic films at the market includes several anticipated festival entries.

Those include Sundance‘s A House Made of Splinters, The Mission, Girl Picture, Hatching, Speak No Evil, Rotterdam’s Tiger competition film Excess Will Save You, and Göteborg’s opening film So Damn Easy Going.

The 18 works in progress comprise eight titles backed by Nordisk Film & TV Fond:

• Denmark’s The Quiet Migration by Malene Choi (The Return),
• The Kiss by double Palme d’or winner Bille August,
• Finland’s Hit Big by JP Valkeapää (Dogs Don’t Wear Pants),
• Iceland’s Road Trip With Mom by Hilmar Oddsson (Cold Light),
• Norway’s War Sailor by Gunnar Wikene (Occupied, Pørni),
• the animated film Titina by Kajsa Næss (It’s Up to You),
• Sweden’s Burn All My Letters by Björn Runge (The Wife)
• Exodus, directorial debut of A Hustle’s Diary producer Abbe Hassan.

Other standout works in progress by rising female directing talents include Denmark’s The Great Silence, by Katrine Brocks, starring Ninjababy’s Kristine Kujath Thorp and Winter Brothers’ Eliott Crosset Hove, Unruly by Malou Reymann (A Perfectly Normal Family), Norway’s Storm by former Nordic Talents winner Erika Calmeyer (Twin, Nudes), and Sweden’s Dogborn by the Cannes Critics’ Week selected Isabella Carbonell.

Also worth highlighting is The Andersson Brothers, a humorous and intimate documentary about Roy Andersson and his three brothers, filmed by the legendary Swedish director’s niece and former co-worker Johanna Bernhardsson.

Nordic Talents Collaboration
A major platform for rising Nordic talents, Nordic Film Market is for the first time collaborating with Nordisk Film & TV Fond to offer its privileged space to four projects that were first pitched last September at Nordic Talents 2021.

The four projects to be presented February 4 are:

• Lovette (Sweden) by Hawa Sanneh and Jimm Garbis, co-winners of the coveted Nordic Talents Pitch Award,
• A Soviet Love Story (Sweden) by Angelika Abramovitch, winner of the Nordic Talents Special Mention Award 2021,
• The Great Unknown (Denmark) by Charlotte Brodthagen
• The Last Untouched Wilderness (Finland) by Kirsikka Paakkinen.

Read more about Nordic Talents: CLICK HERE

Other former Nordic Talent winner and attendees will be introducing their feature projects at the Nordic Film Market’s Discovery programme.

Brwa Vahabpour - 2018 Nordic Talents Special Mention winner - will be pitching Europa, the story of Kurdish/Norwegian Akam, whose comfortable life in Oslo is disrupted by the arrival of his uncle - an illegal immigrant. Renée Mlodyszewski is producing for True Content Entertainment.

Meanwhile Finland’s rising talent Lauri-Matti Parppei who attended Nordic Talents 2020 with The Beast Friend, will be pitching the project again with Tekele producer Julia Elomäki. The film is a modern-day psychosexual fable of co-dependency and abusive relationships between Mia and a giant bear, both isolated in an old mansion on an island.

“All projects at Discovery are initiated by talents who - for the most part - have already attracted critical or festival attention,” said Tobias Åkseson, Head of Nordic Programme & Nordic Film Lab, the year-round training programme, co-organised with Film i Väst, the Danish Film Institute, Swedish Film Institute, Norwegian Film Institute, and Finnish Film Foundation.

Other anticipated Discovery projects are Anything for Her by Faroese-born Copenhagen-based Andrias Høgenni (2018 Canal+ Award for his short film No Bad Intention), produced by Tambo Film), and Redoubt by John Skoog (Ridge), produced by Plattform Produktion.

Full list of Nordic Film Market’s Works in Progress 2022:

• The Great Silence by Katrine Bricks (Monolit Film, Denmark
• The Quiet Migration by Malene Choi (Manna Film, Denmark)
• Unruly by Malou Reymann (Nordisk Film Production, Denmark)
  
• The Cake Dynasty by Christian Lollike, (Tales Inc, Denmark)
• The Kiss by Bille August, (Nordisk Film, Denmark)
• Hit Big by JP Valkeapää (Lomeetta, Finland
• Siblings by Saara Cantell (Making Movies, Finland)
• War Sailor by Gunnar Vikene (Mer Film, Norway)
• Titina by Katja Næss (Mikrofilm, Norway)
• Norwegian Dream by Leiv Igor Devold (Spætt Film, Norway)
• Night by Mona Johanne Hoel (Freedom From Fear, Norway)
• Storm by Erika Calmeyer (Paradox, Norway)
• Dogborn by Isabella Carbonell (Memento Film, Sweden)
• Burn All My Letters by Björn Runge (SF Studios, Sweden)
• The Andersson Brothers by Johanna Bernhardsson (Cinenic Film, Sweden)
• Exodus by Abbe Hassan (B-Reel Films, Sweden)
• Road Trip with Mom by Hilmar Oddsson (Ursus Parvus, Iceland).
  

For the full list of Nordic Film Market programme, check: www.goteborgfilmfestival.se