Haugesund New Nordic Films sets up 41 film fields

From August 23rd to 26th on the coast of Haugesund, Norway, more than 300 industry delegates from top shingles such as Warner Bros Discovery, Viaplay, Germany’s Constantin Film, The Match Factory and France’s TF1 Studio will attend Scandinavia’s largest film screening, New , expected Nordic films.

Ruben Ostlund’s Palme d’Or winner ‘Triangle of Sadness’ will both open the Filmconfab celebrations and be screened at the market along with 18 new Nordic finished films. But for the avid buyers and programmers of Nordic content, the biggest draw will be the 18 works in progress – half of them seeking sales and distribution – and 23 images in development that are available for co-production and financing.

“We have seen a shift in recent years, with buyers and sellers favoring the works-in-progress and Nordic co-production markets over market screenings. These appear to be more valuable to the industry,” said Gyda Velvin Mykklebust, director of New Nordic Films.

Commenting on this year’s programme, Mykklebust said the COVID impact on the production sector was still visible as a record number of projects were submitted for the Nordic co-production market. “Aside from the large number of titles still awaiting release, we can see that people are still putting a lot of time into development,” she noted.

Putting together the menu for her 28th^th Edition, the New Nordic Films honcho chose to showcase emerging talent who have been missing out on networking opportunities during COVID, and more than half of the projects in development are debut films, many of them by strong ones producers are supported.

The first feature films to look out for at the Nordic Co-Production Market are the family drama-comedy Anything for Her by Faroese Andrias Høgenni, winner of a Canal+ award at Cannes Critics Week, and the thriller Stranger by Mads Hedegaard from Denmark, produced by Motor Productions from “As in Heaven”.

“We also have a large number of promising female debutantes,” Mykklebust added, citing “The Soft Skin” by Berlinale Generation-chosen Minka Jakerson, “Porcelain” by Swede/Sami Ann Holmgren and “The Blowfish” by Elin Övergaard entered Cannes 2019 with the short film Who Talks.

Other strong projects in development include UK-produced ‘A Gift to My Mother’ by US-born Aaron Brookner (‘My Uncle Howard’) and Estonian-Norwegian refugee survival drama ‘Container’ by Arun Tamm.

Work in progress, slated for a winter 2022/spring 2023 release, includes compelling titles such as Finnish Teemu Nikki’s The Player, an addiction story starring Pekka Strang, Swedish collective Crazy Pictures’ sci-fi UFO Sweden, Oscar-nominated Nils Gaup’s (Pathfinder’s) historical social drama The Riot, and Ivan’s Ukrainian-Norwegian-Czech co-professional Oxygen Station Tymchenko.

The more than 300 industry participants – most of them from Europe – will also be invited to inspiring sessions on diversity, talent development and distribution. Sessions will focus on books in Haugesund, “Nourishing New Voices Without Killing Their Vibes” with filmmakers Nathalie Álvarez Mesén (“Clara Sola”) and Locarno-chosen Franciska Eliassen (“What Grows Where Land is Sick?”), EAVE Talk “Creating a Producer’s Network and Sharing Knowledge,” and Europa Distribution-led “Force Majeure, How the Industry Can Win Audiences from the Sofa and Back to the Cinema.”

New Nordic Films runs alongside Norwegian Intl. Film Festival, its 50th^th Anniversary over 20.-26. August.

Full listing of New Nordic Films work in progress:

“A Happy Day” by Hisham Zaman (Snowfall Cinema, Norway)

“Blomster” by Neil Widgardt (Story AB, Sweden)

“Dancing Queen” by Aurora Gossé (Amacord, Norway)

“Feed” by Johannes Persson (Scandinavian Content Group, Sweden)

“Forever” by Anders Hazelius (SF Studios, Sweden)

“Four Little Adults” by Selma Vilhunen (Tuffi Films, Finland)

“Leave” by Alex Herron (Trollbound Entertainment, Norway)

“Listen Up” by Kaveh Tehrani (Motlys, Norway)

“Longing for Today” by Knut Erik Jensen (Rein Film, Norway)

“My Brother Ted” by Anna Widerberg and Fredrik Ydhag

“Oxygen Station” by Ivan Tymchenko (Svitlofor Film, Spætt Film (UA, Norway)

“The Liberation” by Anders Walter (Nordisk Film, Growing Stories, Denmark)

“The Player” by Nikki Teemu (It’s Alive Films, Finland)

“The Riot” by Nils Gaup (Storyline, Norway)

“There’s No Place Like Home” by Puk Grasten (Regner Grasten, Denmark)

“Third” by Karim Kassem (Karim Kassem, Johan Matton, Lebanon/Sweden)

“UFO Sweden” by Crazy Pictures (Crazy Pictures, Sweden)

“Unmoored” by Caroline Invarsson (Lava Films, Desmar, Winsford Productions, Poland, Sweden, UK)