10/03/2010

The 23rd Nordic Film Festival in Rouen opens today for almost two weeks of immersion in cinema from Belgium, Lower Saxony and the Nordic countries. Programme director Isabelle Duault has put together an eclectic offering spanning 12 sections.

Of the eight titles in competition, three are Norwegian: Rune Denstad Langlo’s North [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Rune Denstad Langlo
film profile] (opening today nationwide in France through Bodega Films), Sara Johnsen’s Upperdog [+see also:
trailer
film profile] and Shooting the Sun [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by Pål Jackman.

The other films in competition are Martin Pieter Zandvliet’s Applause [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Martin Pieter Zandvliet
film profile] (Denmark), White Night Wedding (Iceland) by Baltasar Kormákur, Klaus Härö’s Letters to Father Jacob [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (Finland), The Tempest (Netherlands) by Ben Sombogaart and Geoffrey Enthoven’s The Girls (Belgium).

Although absent from the main competition programme, Sweden has three films in the Panorama section: the documentaries The Queen and I and Videocracy [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile], as well as The King of Ping Pong [+see also:
trailer
film profile].

Danish filmmaker Nicolas Winding Refn is set to come to Rouen to present his Viking movie Valhalla Rising [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Nicolas Winding Refn
film profile], opening today in France through Le Pacte. Five other Refn movies will screen as part of a special tribute.

Other guests expected include Louis Héliot, who will celebrate the 30 years of the Centre Wallonie-Bruxelles, and Oddgeir Bruaset, director of a series of documentaries about people living in remote areas of his native Norway.

Duault, who has been fighting for the last two decades to introduce Nordic films to local audiences, says it is harder today to get access to good recent films – blocked by sales agents or waiting for a selection in Berlin or Cannes – and she bemoans the budget cuts from Nordic partners who used to support her festival. But her greatest joy is each year welcoming over 30,000 visitors, from school children to true film lovers hungry for a different cultural experience.