Lübeck Nordic Film Days turns 50
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Nordic Film Days in Lübeck (Germany), the biggest international showcase of Nordic and Baltic films, is celebrating its 50th anniversary in the presence of some of the greatest artists from the region, including Jan Troell, Gabriel Axel and Bent Hamer.
The festival opens today with Pernille Fischer Christensen’s Dancers, which is competing for the NDR Film Prize (€12,500) and Audience Award (€5,000), along with 17 other feature films, including Let the Right One In [trailer] (Sweden), The Man Who Loved Yngve (Norway), The Collectress [trailer] (Lithuania) and Georg (Estonia). A total of 140 features, shorts and documentary films are screening until November 2.
This year’s special celebration will include a retrospective of the most remarkable Nordic films of the last 50 years, such as Fridrik Thor Fridriksson’s Children of Nature, Roy Andersson’s A Swedish Love Story and Gabriel Axel’s Babette’s Feast. Some filmmakers will introduce their first and latest works, like Søren Kragh Jacobsen (Wanna See My Beautiful Navel, What No One Knows [trailer]) and Hamer (Eggs, O'Horten [trailer]).
Artistic Director Linde Fröhlich is proud to say that thanks to the festival the local population has developed a strong interest in and knowledge of Nordic films, hence the keenness of so many German buyers to view films in Lübeck. Last year’s top prize winner, the Norwegian film The Art of Negative Thinking [trailer], was picked up by Kool Film Distribution and has sold over 50,000 admissions in Germany since last month. Ole Bornedal’s The Substitute [trailer] was acquired by MFA and will soon air on NDR, the festival’s media partner, who also picked up To Love Someone and The Black Pimpernel.
Nordic films screening this year that already have a German distributor include O’Horten and What No One Knows (Pandora), Fighter (Maximum), Let the Right One In, Just Another Love Story [trailer] and SOS, Summer of Suspense (MFA).
Annika Pham cineuropa.org