For its 60th anniversary the largest film festival in Europe dedicated to films from the Nordic and Baltic region, has a packaged programme of 199 titles from established and upcoming directors and will run for an extra day - from October 30 to November 4.

Speaking to nordicfilmandtvnews, artistic director Linde Fröhlich noted that nine out of 17 films in the main Feature Film competition section are directorial debuts and seven are directed by women, such as Norway’s Blind Spot by Tuva Novotny, Phoenix by Camilla Strøm Henriksen, Iceland’s And Breathe Normally by Isold Uggadóttir, the Faroese/Danish film Nina by Maria Winther Olsen. The Little Comrade by Estonia’s Moonika Siimets is the first film from the Baltics to open Nordic Film Days.

Other striking debuts competing for the new €7,500 Feature Debut Prize and €12,500 NDR Best Feature Film Prize include Denmark’s Christian IV by Kasper Kalle and Ditte & Louise by Niclas Bendixen.

Established directors and former NDR Prize winners also selected for the main competition section include Michael Noer (Before the Frost), Baldvin Z (Let Me Fall) and Henrik Martin Dahlsbakken (An Affair), while Klaus Härö – double Audience award winner with Mother of Mine and Letters to Father Jacob - will introduce One Last Deal.

The festival’s other main programmes, the Children and Youth Film has 36 films (16 features and 20 shorts), including Alone in Space, Monky, The Falcons, while the Documentary sidebar will screen 28 titles, such as Heartbound by Janus Metz and Sine Plambech (2009 winners with Ticket to Paradise and Love on Delivery).

Finland’s legendary director/producer Jörn Donner will be on hand to present his documentary Fuck Off 2-Images from Finland capturing the changes in his native country since his original 1971 film Fuck off-Images from Finland. “It’s quite extraordinary that we had a retrospective of Donner’s work in 1982 and 36 years later he’s back at the festival,” said Fröhlich. “He is among a few veteran attendees that we’re proud to welcome, together with Latvian director Ivars Seleckis (To Be Continued) and our 90 year-old festival founder Rolf Hiller.”

Looking back in time, the festival will also celebrate the centenary of the founding of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, of Iceland’s independence (with 10 Icelandic titles across all sections) and of Swedish legend Ingmar Bergman.

In its third year, the increasingly popular TV Drama section has three series from Norway (Home Ground, His Name is Not William, State of Happiness), the Finnish youth series DragonSlayer 666, the Swedish comedy Happy at Sea by Felix Herngren, Danish drama Ride Upon the Storm and Swedish/Danish The Bridge. A favourite meetings place for Nordic and German professionals, Lübeck will host an industry conference focusing on distribution entitled ‘Will Distribution be festivalised’.

As always, several German distributors will also use the Nordic Film Days’ strong attendance from talents/directors/producers (75 guests in total) to get media attention, ahead of the films’ national release.

Festival films set to open soon in German cinemas include Becoming Astrid (DCM, December 6), Woman at War (Pandora (December 13) and Border (Wild Bunch February 2019).

For the festival’s full programme, check: http://www.luebeck.de/filmtage...