10/01/2024 - “Probably never bigger, possibly never better,” artistic director Jonas Holmberg states about this year’s programme, which showcases the best of the North

The programme of the 47th edition of the Göteborg Film Festival, unspooling from 26 January-4 February, has just been unveiled. Counting 240 films from 82 countries, the gathering’s main spotlight will, as usual, be on the Nordic region. Asked about any specific themes, artistic director Jonas Holmberg suggested several. “Just by looking at the main Nordic Competition section, the variety has probably never been bigger, possibly also never better,” was his assessment. “There’s zombie horror in Handling the Undead [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile], there’s sci-fi in Eternal [+see also:
film review
interview: Ulaa Salim
film profile], there’s comedy in The Missile [+see also:
trailer
film profile] and historical drama in The Promised Land [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile], and there’s a refugee theme in Madame Luna – all this and more representing the best of Nordic storytelling.”

Ten films will compete in the 2024 Nordic Competition, including this year’s opening film, Handling the Undead, Thea Hvistendahl’s adaptation of John Ajvide Lindqvist’s novel, starring Renate Reinsve and Anders Danielsen Lie. The other entries are Daniel Espinosa’s Madame Luna [+see also:
film review
film profile], Miia Tervo’s The Missile, Isabella Eklöf’s Kalak [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Asta Kamma August
interview: Isabella Eklöf
film profile], Nikolaj Arcel’s The Promised Land, Ulaa Salim’s Eternal, Niclas Larsson’s Mother, Couch! [+see also:
film review
interview: Niclas Larsson
film profile], Johanna Pyykkö’s My Wonderful Stranger, Ernst De Geer’s The Hypnosis [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Asta Kamma August
interview: Ernst De Geer
film profile] and Ninna Pálmadottir’s Solitude [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Ninna Pálmadóttir
film profile] (the last three are also debut features).

The other competitive sections are the Ingmar Bergman Competition for creative debut features, the International Competition and the Nordic Documentary Competition. Here, Marius Dybwad Brandrud and Petra Bauer’s Fifteen Zero Three Nineteenth of January Two Thousand Sixteen (dealing with gang violence in contemporary Sweden), Ellen Fiske’s Leaving Jesus (a story about those attempting to get out of fundamentalist religious sects) and the acclaimed Sara Broos’ Shard are among Jonas Holmberg’s own favourite picks. “We have some very universal subjects in some of these films, but also some deeply personal and intimate explorations, like with Sara Broos or, for that matter, Johanna Bernhardson’s The Andersson Brothers [+see also:
trailer
film profile].” The latter film, portraying four brothers with the most common surname in Sweden, out of whom one has the first name Roy and is a world-renowned filmmaker, also provides true local colour to the programme. “They’re truly born and bred ‘Göteborgians’, these brothers”, Holmberg reminds us.

Honorary career awards will be bestowed upon actors Ewan McGregor and Sidse Babett Knudsen, both icons of the new cinematic waves in, respectively, the UK and Denmark in the 1990s, and Alicia Vikander will be in town for a new instalment of her film-lab activity, launched in 2022 to inspire youths to embark on a future career in the film industry. A special focus section, Another Intelligence, is dedicated to the wondrous worlds of artificial intelligence, partly showcasing some masterful visions of yesteryear, like Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey and Jean-Luc Godard’s Alphaville as well as Ingmar Bergman’s Persona – in an AI-generated version, aptly titled Another Persona, a special creation by the festival itself (see the news). “This is something else, quite literally. We have cast the Finnish actress Alma Pöysti in the Liv Ullmann part, and merged her with the original film. Bibi Andersson’s part is the original 1966 one, but the Alma Pöysti part is 2023,” muses Holmberg. “It will be screened just once, and only in Göteborg.”

The full programme is available here.