Yesterday at a side event for tomorrow’s Nordic Council Film Prize award ceremony in Helsinki, selected nominees discussed how Nordic films can compete on the global market.

The Nordic Council Film Prize representatives reunited at Helsinki’s Korjaamo Culture Factory were producer Lars G. Lindström (Sámi Blood/Sameblod), director-screenwriter Christian Tafdrup (Parents/Forældre), producers Lise Orheim Stender, Jesper Morthorst and director-screenwriter-producer Gudmundur Arnar Gudmundsson (Heartstone/Hjartasteinn), producer Kai Nordberg (Little Wing/Tyttö nimeltä Varpu), and producer Khalid Maimouni (Hunting Flies/Fluefangeren).The event was hosted by film critic Silja Sahlgren-Fodstad.

The amazing coincidence with this year’s nominees is that they all are directed by first-time filmmakers. What are the challenges in getting the debut features off the ground?

One common denominator found in the panel was the directors’ strong background in the short format. Having international success with short films can help the directors’ feature films a lot. Gudmundsson had a short film selected to Cannes, and Selma Vilhunen was already an Oscar-nominated director when Little Wing was getting financed.

Lindström recalled that one of his best decisions as a producer was to help the director Amanda Kernell to turn Sami Blood’s prologue/epilogue storyline into a short film. The resulting Northern Great Mountain took home an award from Sundance, which eventually helped with the financing of the film.

Financing was seen as the hardest nut to crack. Tafdrup, who had difficulties in getting producers to believe in his unusual project with fantasy elements, got funding from the Danish Film Institute’s New Danish Screen, which is specifically looking for innovative films.

Maimouni’s challenge was to convince that Hunting Flies by Izer Aliu was a Nordic film – it was entirely shot in Macedonia and spoken in Albanian. Ultimately, it was Joachim Trier’s English-language Louder Than Bombs, last year’s Nordic Council Film Prize winner, that broke the ceiling and put pressure on the financiers in Norway to accept Hunting Flies also as a Norwegian film. And only after being selected for Toronto was Maimouni able to nab a domestic distributor. In light of these difficulties, Maimouni felt that the Nordic Council Film Prize nomination was a victory. 

Children and Youth
Another common denominator for this year’s Nordic Council Film Prize candidates is the focus on children or young people. It is widely accepted in the film industry that working with young people –usually non-professionals-can be challenging. But the panellists had overall positive experiences. Lindström’s reply was simple: you find the right actors because you have to find them. With Sámi Blood, they had the rare situation where they had to audition every single person among the few hundreds in the world able to speak South Sami. For Maimouni, having too many people to consider was not a problem either: 11 kids showed up for the audition in which they had ten roles to cast.

Gudmundsson’s advice was to look for two things in young actors: ambition and honesty. Supportive parents are also a plus, as well as taking the necessary time while shooting with children. Tafdrup found working with his young cast comfortable since communication was less predetermined than with the formally educated professional actors.

The challenge however remains attracting audiences on first features with no A-list actors, and especially films from neighbouring Nordic countries.

No Package deal
Nordberg had a concrete suggestion: giving up the idea of selling Nordic rights as a package deal, a custom often used by major groups such as Nordisk Film and Scanbox. The Finnish producer argued that tailor-made distribution deals, though more demanding for the producers, would be more beneficial for the films. Morthorst concurred: you should find a distributor who really wants to distribute your film.

If films sometimes have a difficult time reaching Nordic audiences, television has been doing rather well recently – surely no surprise that Skam got mentioned a couple of times. The panellists, however, felt that drama series are more an opportunity than a threat as filmmakers can get more work and hone their skills.

Finally, asked about the Nordic Council Film Prize, the panellist said that being nominated was a reward in itself. Most of the films had their premiere already some time ago, so the renewed attention brought by the nomination was highly appreciated.