Life is Beautiful best Nordic documentary at 2024 Nordisk Panorama

The Nordisk Panorama short and documentary film festival in Malmö completed its 35th edition Tuesday night, September 24. As is custom, a festive prize ceremony finished everything off, this year at the Cinema Panora, where the five main honours met with their happy recipients. Out of 15 contenders, the 2024 Best Nordic Documentary Award went to Life is Beautiful (Al Haya Helwa) by Mohamed Jabaly. A co-production between Norway, Palestine and Quatar, the film deals with the Palestinian-born, now Norway-based director himself, doing his best to navigate “a life put on hold by politics and bureaucracy” as the description reads, by using “creativity to connect with the world and find a way forward”. The film, which plays out during seven years in diary-shaped form, world-premiered at the latest edition of Amsterdam’s IDFA in November 2023, and has been instantly praised and awarded ever since. The motivation of the Malmö jury – Jutta Krug, commissioning editor at WDR, director Lea Glob, winner of the best Nordic documentary awards 2023 (Apolonia, Apolonia), and Francesco Giai Via, member of the Biennale di Venezia selection committee – read: “A seemingly simple film that in its simple form gives us a rare look into the complexities of global issues, Nordic society, our film industry and our hearts.” The winning film in this category also gets a cash prize of €11,000.

The award for Best Nordic Short, accompanied by a sum of €5,000, was won by Sweden’s Carolina Sandvik for The Lovers, a puppet-animated study of a couple’s progressive physical transformation. “For balancing the subtle with the grotesque to deliver a humorous and visceral commentary on the nature of intimacy,” said the jury, consisting of Enrico Vannucc of the Locarno International Film Festival selection committee, Inga Diev, General Manager at Ouat Media, and director Marlene Emilie Lyngstad, winner of the 2023 Best Nordic Short Award (Norwegian Offspring).

A Swedish winner was also appointed in the New Nordic Voice category, where Camilla Jämting’s Project Dad (Projekt Pappa) enticed the jury members Anita Svingen, director of the Norwegian Short Film Festival, Ann Lind Andersen, Danish film critic of What2Watch and Finnish directors Arman Zafari and Markus Toivo, both New Nordic Voice winners at the 2023 Nordisk Panorama, respectively for Prelude (Murtuma) and Under Construction (Wanha Markku).

Honourable mentions went to The Monk (Munken, Denmark-Netherlands) by Mira Jargil and Christian SønderbyJepsen, Into the Blue (Denmark) by Ömer Sami, and to Punishment (Straff, Norway) by Øystein Mamen.

A very special accolade at Nordisk Panorama is the Nordic Documentary Producer Award, chosen from five nominations via the Nordic directors’ guilds to “a producer whose leadership, courage and willingness to take risks has helped ensure the development of emerging talents and advanced the documentary as an art form”. This years’ recipient was Sara Stockmann, active since 2005 and with over 30 titles on her CV, most prominently Armadillo (2010), winner of the Critics’ Week Grand Prize at Cannes in 2010. “Sara Stockmann consistently advocates for bold, unconventional films, while steadfastly supporting the director’s vision. Her unwavering tenacity drives her to defend creative integrity, foster strong relationships, and uphold decency in every project she undertakes,” read the motivation, supplemented by a cash prize of €10,000.

Launched in 1990 and since 2013 annually held in Malmö just past mid-September, the Nordisk Panorama event has become a sure sign of vibrant autumn term activity in the span of the Nordic film year. Industry players from the whole Nordic region as well as a good number of outer-Nordics are making the pilgrimage, attending seminars and panels and of course the lively pitch project forums for co-production and co-financing, making up part of the main core of the whole event.

Present already back in 2001 was newly-appointed Executive Director Heidi Elise Christensen, who at that time managed the festival’s co-financing forum, a stint that lasted eight years. “At that point I felt ready to get into the actual process myself, and started freelancing,” she recalls. “I then started to work at Final Cut for Real, where I became a film producer, for twelve years.”

After a run that proved decidedly successful – some titles under her belt include The Look of Silence (2016) and Flee(Flugt, 2021) – Christensen again turned her eye towards her old working place, to which she made a homecoming in early 2024.

“When Anita Reher approached the end of her term as director, an opportunity materialised. ‘Hmm, wouldn’t it be quite nice to come back again?’ I thought. And I did come back, in March this year.”

She has no immediate plans for any radical change, rather she puts great value in the existing and substantial qualities of the event, indeed its success, as it were. “I stated very clearly at my job interview that I’ll not be making any great change, but of course we will evaluate the edition that just was, and look into what is worthwhile for the industry, how the staff is operating and how our economy works out. Of course, there’s a constant need of adapting to the market, to new trends and tendencies, new forms of distribution, new ways, in order to get a good overview and keep up with things. We travel quite a bit to other similar events for inspiration, as they also travel to us, likewise in order to get inspiration.”

Those substantial qualities of the Nordisk Panorama are very clear to her, she feels. “First of all, we’re unique as a Nordic operation; no one else shares our profile. The geographical location of Malmö is close to ideal, infrastructurally as well as from a cost point of view. The event has steadily expanded; we have seminars and other activities that have grown in number, and more and more international participants are present. It looks really good.”

“Then there’s the reputation, of Nordic short films and documentaries on a global level. Just at my old workplace Final Cut for Real, we had several Oscar nominations. We are incredibly strong, and I think it stems from our stable and solid support systems in the respective countries through our Nordic film institutes, our great film schools, our television broadcasters, including public service, our common language, more or less literally, but also to a high degree culturally.”

She’s also happy with the size of things. “It’s just right, a good rich volume with plenty of quality in order to attract international festival heads, broadcasters and decision makers who will feel their time well spent, but at the same time small enough to provide a familiar and pleasant atmosphere. Year in and year out, people will return, we know each other well and we all feel welcome. Quite the perfect mid-size, I’d say, one that may work even better than some of the big events out there. We’ve had 600 meetings during our pitch forum days this year. Not too shabby a number, now is it?”

As is Nordisk Panorama custom, Heidi Elise Christensen’s director tenure will run for five years, to which she looks forward. Looking back, she’s seen many projects pitched at the event that later bore full fruition and flew out into the world, sometimes towards greatness. Looking even further back, all the way to her 2001 Nordisk Panorama debut, she recognises, and knows so well, many of the participants at the 2024 edition, returning and still going strong.

“There are so many familiar faces - people who still create, produce, buy and contribute. I also see the new generation, of new, fresh and young talents who are on their way,“ she confidently reveals.

Life is Beautiful may well be a most fitting winning title for the 35th edition of Nordisk Panorama. As for edition 36, September 2025 should be a sure sign of vibrant activity, possibly also quite festive.

The Young Nordic Award, chosen by the younger segment of the festival audience, was given to Norway’s Warrior Heart(Smerteterskel) by Marianne Ulrichsen, and the City of Malmö’s Audience Award went to Sissel Morell Dargis’ Balomania (Denmark-Spain).