Nordic festival bait 2026: A look at some of the Nordic films to tempt festival programmers in Cannes, Venice, Toronto, and beyond

Trying to second guess what will make it into official selection in, say, Cannes or Venice is a forlorn task, but those events will certainly have a bumper crop of Nordic titles to choose from.

The Swedish festival charge could well be led by Ruben Östlund’s The Entertainment System Is Down - if the double Palme D’Or winning director finishes it soon enough. He hinted recently that if the film isn’t ready in time for this year’s Cannes, he may hold it for 2027.

Other prime Nordic contenders for the top festivals include Romanian auteur Cristian Mungiu’s Fjord, sold by Goodfellas and starring Sebastian Stan and Renate Reinsve as a Romanian-Norwegian couple struggling for acceptance in the wife’s remote Norwegian home town. This was shot in Norway with several Nordic co-producers - and so the Nordics can justifiably claim it as one of their own.

At the European Film Market in Berlin, some of the most likely fiction contenders are showcased during Thursday's EFM Spotlight on the Nordics. (See list below) This features footage from ten new works in progress - two each from the five Nordic countries, all with filmed introductions from the directors.

“We all have some quite unique voices coming out of our countries.” Lizette Gram Mygind, Festival Consultant at the Danish Film Institute, explains the thinking behind the initiative, which features work both from emerging talent and established directors.

Among the familiar names in the showcase, Golden Globe nominated Finnish director Klaus Härö’s new drama Blue Baby (Hetki ennen valoa), will be ready by the summer. This is a drama set in the middle of a healthcare crisis, about a nurse, a mother and a new born baby with a severe heart condition.

Sources suggest Woman, Unknown (Kvinde, Ukendt), the latest feature from Danish-based Queen Of Hearts (Dronningen) director May el-Toukhy, might be ready for Cannes. Produced by Nordisk Film Production in co-operation with Zentropa, Nafta Films and Film I Väst, and sold by TrustNordisk. This drama (which is being presented in the EFM spotlight) is about a woman soon to marry an older man, but harbouring some disturbing secrets.

Girl Beast (Pigedyr), Danish director Selma Sunniva’s feature debut (also in the EFM spotlight), may entice festival programmers later in the year. Billed as “a Lolita story from Lolita’s point of view”, it is based on Cecilie Lind’s 2022 novel looking at childhood trauma and dysfunctional family relationships. A high profile cast includes Trine Dyrholm.

Also from Denmark, and potentially also looking for a festival slot later in the year, is young Norwegian-born director Marlene Emilie Lyngstad’s Cute, a love story about a man longing for childhood innocence. This is produced by Carl Osbæck Adelkilde through Nordisk Film Production..

Among other Danish titles that could surface at A-list events later in the year are Unraveled (Vores Løfte), the latest feature from Pernille Fischer Christensen, whose early works like A Soap (En soap) and Becoming Astrid (Unga Astrid) were both Berlinale selections, and possibly Ulaa Salim’s Candy Kings, sold by Reinvent Yellow, although this is still editing.

From Norway, Erik Poppe’s new feature Beloved (Kjærast) is unlikely to be ready for May, but could well surface at one of the big late summer festivals. Sold by Reinvent Yellow Sales, this is a tender, closely focused love story in which a husband, who is a sailor, is continually drawn away from his wife and son. The film’s original script is written by Norwegian playwight and author Jon Fosse, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature in 2023. Those who saw footage presented in Gothenburg rhapsodised about its visual beauty.

Also sold by Reinvent Yellow Sales (and one of the titles in the EFM spotlight), Irasj Asanti’s debut feature Fighter has a chance of being ready by the early summer. It stars Sofia Tjelta Sydness (Norway’s Shooting Star at the Berlinale) as an aspiring MMA fighter with a complicated family life. Early buzz suggests it has some of the same gritty feel as Nicolas Winding Refn’s debut, Pusher (which screened in Cannes Critics’ Weeks).

Another Norwegian title, Hans Petter Moland’s Knut Hamsun adaptation, Growth Of The Soil (Markens grøde), should be ready for the summer and autumn festivals. An epic story set in the barren wilderness of rural Norway, this has a strong cast including Asta Kamma August, star of The Hypnosis (Hypnosen), and daughter of Pernilla August.

Meanwhile, despite the title, Norwegians are optimistic about festival prospects for Eivind Landsvik’s Low Expectations(Lave forventninger). Salaud Morisset handles world sales of the film, about a 29 year old artist facing a breakdown. Produced by Maipo Film, the project stars hugely popular Norwegian singer-songwriter Marie Ulven Ringheim, aka Girl in Red, and could be ready for Cannes.

Ingvild Søderlind’s The Murder Of Benjamin (Drapet på Benjamin Hermansen), a drama about one of the first racist killings in Norway, could also be ready for the early summer. It’s produced by Thomas Robsahm, known for The Worst Person In The World (Verdens verste menneske). TrustNordisk handles sales.

Norway also has a bumper crop of feature docs on the way. A dozen or more are expected to feature in the main spring documentary festivals, among them titles like Asgeir Helgestad’s polar bear doc Frost Without Snow and Ice (Frost uten Snø og Is), sold by DR Sales, and Anette Ostrø’s The Golden Swan, which deals with the tragic story of the director’s artist brother, Hans Christian Ostrø, who was kidnapped and killed by Kashmiri separatists, but left a rich legacy of writing and drawing. Silje Evensmo Jacobsen’s children’s doc The Mystery Package (Mysteriepakken), which follows the same director’s Sundance success with A New Kind Of Wilderness (Ukjent Landskap), is also expected to surface at a spring festival.

Meanwhile, also from Norway, Anna Shishova-Bogoliubova’s Autumn Of The Patriarch, looking at survival strategies of people living within the modern Russian dictatorship, is eyeing an early summer festival slot. Sales are handled by Together Films.

Among other Finnish titles with potential festival traction is Laura Hyppönen’s second feature, suspense drama Lex Julia, which won an Audience Favourite Pitch award at the 2025 Baltic Event Works in Progress.

Several Icelandic titles are also being submitted to major festivals. Scottish, but Iceland based, director Graeme Maley is close to finishing Polyorama (one of the titles in the EFM Nordic spotlight). Produced by Saga Film and starring Sean Harris, this is the story of an Icelandic stage star (Edda Björgvsindóttir) having to face up to events from her past.

Bragi Þór Hinriksson’s psychological thriller Disturbed (Röskun) has its Icelandic release early in the year, but may well go on to surface at festivals later.

On the non-fiction front, Amongst The Birds (Meðal fugla), directed by Ingvar Þórðarson, Ragnar Axelsson and Mika Kaurismaki, about a couple which looks after eider birds as they breed in a remote part of Iceland. The film is expected to surface at a spring festival.

Another documentary, Nikolai Galitzine’s Island Nation (Eyriki), set in a remote arctic community dealing with rapid climate and social changes, is hoping for an A-list festival berth.

However, Jens Sjögren’s Bloody Men (Jävla karlar), adapted from the hit Andrev Walden novel and produced through leading Swedish outfits B-Reel, is part of the EFM Nordic showcase, and should be a festival contender. This is a coming-of-age story about a boy trying to find out more about about the real identity of his father, while dealing with his mother’s wild relationships with a series of inappropriate men.

Another EFM spotlight title, writer-director Agnes Skonare’s Bergmanesque Saturn Return (Saturnus Återkomst), about three sisters returning to their family’s old country house for their mother Lotta’s sixtieth birthday, was warmly received as a work in progress in Göteborg. There was also buzz in Göteborg around Elin Grönblom’s family thriller Bloodsuckers, produced by Mill Films and picked up for sales by French outfit Charades. It’s the kind of upscale auteur-driven genre project that might just tempt festival programmers.

Another Swedish title, Amanda Kernell’s Brace Your Heart (Garrat du Váimmu), about a young Sámi reindeer herder mourning her father and trying to keep the old traditions alive, is another festival contender. It’s sold by TrustNordisk.

Johannes Nyholm’s Weird Elliot, a quirky drama produced by Stockholm-based Hobab and about an autistic vlogger investigating a death while dealing with his own mental health problems, could also catch the eye of the A-list events.

European Film Market’s Spotlight: The Nordics curated and hosted by The Five Nordics in Berlin

- Woman, Unknown (Den) dir. May el-Toukhy
Hoping to secure her future through marriage, a young housemaid finds her new social status jeopardised as a suppressed secret from her past emerges

- Girl Beast (Den) dir. Selma Sunniva
Sara is a girl beast, an object of desire and a being of desire. Girl Beast is a psychological drama with heightened reality. A tale of power, loss, liberation, and self-destruction.

- Just A Kid (Bara barn, Ice) dir. Vala Ómarsdóttir
16-year-old Julia is loaded with responsibilities, caring for her eight year old sister while her mother works double shifts. She still longs for social life, friends and intimacy, and finds herself at crossroads as opportunities present themselves.

- Polyorama (Ice) dir. Graeme Maley
Aging Icelandic star of stage and screen premieres her new show tonight, and is confronted by a foreign journalist whose presence turns a routine premiere into a backstage of regret and recrimination.

- Blue Baby (Fin) dir. Klaus Haro
A drama about two women, motherhood and a fragile new life in the middle of a care crisis and nurses’ strike.

- Halima (Fin) dir. Naima Mohamud
Halima is a 10 year old Somali girl living in Finland in 1998. She loves dancing, pop music and Leonardo DiCaprio. Halima’s family is moving constantly because of her mum’s job, and this makes her retreat into dreams of fame instead of friendships. In a yet another new town, everything changes: For the first time, Halima makes real friends. Through warm and funny mishaps, she discovers friendship, belonging and resilience.

- Fighter (Nor) dir. Irasj Asanti
When Sara finally fulfils her dream to fight in her first MMA match, it collides with her arranged marriage, falling in love with a girl, and an unwanted pregnancy. She has to make a choice that can ruin everything.

- ViQueens (Vikingjentene, Nor) dir. Harald Zwart
An epic Viking adventure across oceans and empires, where friendship, action and humour collide on a journey that challenges old legends and proves that courage and choosing your own way can change the course of history.

- Bloody Men (Swe) dir. Jens Sjogren
A coming-of-age story about the love for an incapable mother, about a bunch of damn men, and about not becoming one yourself.

- Saturn Return (Swe) dir. Agnes Skonare
Three sisters, a mother, and a blood moon collide in a chamber drama / dark comedy about transitions – between ages, roles, and desires.