05/04/2016 - The Icelandic capital launches its annual showcase featuring films from the Scandinavian countries on 13 April

Finnish director Klaus Härö’s award-winning drama The Fencer [+see also:
trailer
interview: Ivo Felt
film profile], which was nominated for a Golden Globe and received two Jussis – Finland’s national film prize – for Best Film and Best Cinematography (Tuomo Hutri), will open Iceland’s fourth Nordic Film Festival in Reykjavik’s Nordic House on Wednesday 13 April. 

Organised by the Nordic House together with the four Scandinavian embassies in the capital and the local Bio Paradis movie theatre, the programme of 15 screenings includes both recent features and documentaries from the Nordic countries.

Finland is also represented by Petri Kotwica’s drama-thriller Absolution [+see also:
trailer
film profile], about a young couple speeding down the road towards the hospital with the woman, Kiia, in premature labour. Their car hits something, but neither sees anything. Having given birth to her baby, Kiia befriends a visitor whose husband is in a coma after falling victim to a hit-and-run driver on the same day.

Swedish director Beata Gårdeler’s Flocking [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Beata Gårdeler
film profile], which won the Crystal Bear in the Berlinale’s Generation 14plus section, is set in a small Swedish community where a 14-year-old girl claims she has been raped by a schoolmate. More and more people believe she is lying, and start a witch-hunt against the girl and her family.

Danish director Christina Rosendahl’s The Idealist [+see also:
trailer
film profile] follows a Danish reporter who, 18 years after the accident on 21 January 1968, uncovers the truth behind the US Air Force B-52 bomber carrying nuclear warheads, which crashed on the polar ice near the American military base in Danish-controlled Thule, Greenland.

The Nordic documentary package comprises Swedish directors Magnus and Fredrik Gertten’s Becoming Zlatan, portraying Swedish football player Zlatan Ibrahimovic from his early days in Malmö, where his teammates thought he was too egoistic and only played for himself, until he rose to superstardom in Italy. 

In Facebookistan, Danish director Jakob Gottschau takes a closer look at Facebook, which with 1.4 billion users is the world’s largest social-media space, storing personal data on an unprecedented scale. The documentary discusses the paradox that lies at its core: while promoting openness and transparency, it encourages everybody to share, yet reveals little about itself.