10/02/2017 - Jackie van Beek’s The Inland Road and Torfinn Iversen’s Oskar’s America are screening in the Generation programme, while Amanda Kernell’s Sámi Blood is in the NATIVe section

Danish international sales boutique LevelK has arrived at the Berlin International Film Festival with three films in the official selection, including the world premieres of New Zealand writer-director Jackie van Beek’s The Inland Road and Norwegian director Torfinn Iversen’s Oskar’s America [+see also:
trailer
interview: Torfinn Iversen
film profile] in the Generation programme, and Swedish director Amanda Kernell’s Sámi Blood [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Amanda Kernell
interview: Lars Lindstrom
film profile] in the NATIVe section. 

The first red-carpet presentation is for actress-turned-director van Beek’s first feature, The Inland Road, a coming-of-age drama screening in Generation 14plus about 16-year-old Tia, who has fallen out with her mother and is now hitchhiking down the country to find her father. With a cast comprising Gloria Popata, Chelsie Preston Crayford, David Elliot, Jodie Hillock and Georgia Spillane, the Sabertooth Films production follows her eventful journey. When she is caught up in a car accident, her father refuses to take her in; instead, she moves in with the family involved in the accident. 

In his feature debut, being shown in Generation Kplus, Iversen portrays ten-year-old Oskar (Odin Eikre), who is left at the farm of his bad-tempered grandfather during the summer holidays, while his mother goes to the US. Fortunately, he becomes acquainted with Levi and his short-sighted horse. Together they come up with a plan to cross the Atlantic in a rowing boat, with the horse as a passenger, and find Oskar’s mother. The Original Film production, which will open domestically next month (March), also stars Jørgen Langhelle, Marie Blokhus and Bjørn Sundquist. 

Featuring “indigenous films from the Arctic Circle – cinema born of the icy cold”, Berlin’s NATIVe section includes Kernell’s Sámi Blood, which earlier this month received the world’s largest film prize, the SEK 1 million (€104,000) Dragon Award for Best Nordic Film at Sweden’s Göteborg International Film Festival (see the news), after having been awarded at Venice and Thessaloniki. With Lene Cecilia Sparrok in the lead, Kernell’s feature debut follows a 14-year-old reindeer-breeding Sámi girl, who must endure racism and biology examinations at her boarding school. She wants another life, but to achieve this, she knows she has to become someone else and break all ties with her family and her culture. In the end, she decides to move to Uppsala to finish her studies. 

Represented at the Berlinale by CEO/managing director Tine Klint, president of sales Derek Lui, media manager Niklas Teng, executive coordinator Stine Bomholt and sales trainee Debra Liang, LevelK is also screening three new Nordic films at the European Film Market. 

Finnish director Anton Sigurðsson’s Cruelty [+see also:
trailer
film profile] describes how the peaceful life in Reykjavik is shaken to the core when two sisters, aged seven and ten years old, are found brutally murdered. But luckily, the two best police detectives are on the case. Margrét Vilhjálmsdóttir and Sveinn Ólafur Gunnarsson play the leads in this Virgo Films production.

Starring Mia Jexen, Nicolas Bro and Sebastian Jessen, While We Live [+see also:
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film profile] by Danish director Mehdi Avaz is based on real-life events: Kristian travels to his hometown and is once again confronted with the tragic accident that tore his family apart five years ago. Copenhagen Pictures staged the production, which will be released in September.

Produced by Finland’s Making Movies, Finnish director Jussi Hiltunen’s Law of the Land [+see also:
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film profile] focuses on a family feud in a remote village in Finnish Lapland, as the hatred between two brothers leaves an imprint of vengeance and violence on the area. The cast includes Ville Virtanen, Jørgen Langhelle, Pernilla August and Malin Buska.