31/03/2008

The Natfilm Festival, Copenhagen’s largest film festival, has been in full swing since last Thursday and runs through April 4. For this 19th and last edition, 160 films are screening in 16 cinemas in the Danish capital, as well as in three venues in Aarhus and one in Odense.

The popular Gala section for mainstream audiences is screening 12 film, including Michael Haneke’s Funny Games U.S. (Nordisk release), Xavier Palud and David Moreau’s horror film The Eye (Scanbox), Pernille Fischer Christensen’s Dancers and closing night film Shine a Light by Martin Scorsese (both Nordisk Film releases).

Italian spaghetti westerns, Asian Tigers, US independents, a handful of the latest French, UK, Spanish, German and Italian arthouse films are also on the menu.

Eleven of the most innovative Danish films are screening in the New Danish Films section during this special farewell edition, to pay tribute to the ever-soul-searching Danish film industry. Three are produced by the Danish Film Institute’s New Danish Screen initiative: Comeback by Ulrik Wivel, The Gift by Niels Gråbøl, and Moving Out by Christian Dyekjaer.

Also in the programme are the experimental One Shot by Linda Wendel –consisting of one long scene with a single edit – and Preludium, described by its Swedish director Johan Melin as a “garage film”, produced outside the traditional Danish and Swedish subsidy schemes.

A Special Retrospective is dedicated to Sweden’s iconic filmmaker Roy Andersson with the Danish premiere of You, the Living [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Pernilla Sandström
interview: Roy Andersson
film profile], to be released by the local arthouse distributor Posthusteatret.

Over 35,000 tickets were sold last year during the Natfilm Festival. Despite its obvious success, the event will be replaced next year by a brand new film festival following the recent merger of the foundations behind the Natfilm Festival and the Copenhagen International Film Festival.