Currently running until August 17, the Locarno International Film Festival in Switzerland opened on August 7 with Icelandic director Baltasar Kormákur’s US action movie 2 Guns. The director was on hand to present the US box office champion, 13 years after his debut film 101 Reykjavik unbowed at the Swiss/Italian venue and launched his film career. On Saturday it will be the turn of the Danish crime movie The Keeper of Lost Causes by Mikkel Nørgaard to play to the 7,000 + Piazza Grande audience.
The Montreal Festival des Films du Monde (August 22-September 2) has been a lucky festival for Nordic films in recent years, and last year Jan Troell collected a Best Director for his feature The Last Sentence. No less than three Nordic films will vie this year for the festival’s Grand Prix of the Americas: the Swedish musical biopic Waltz with Monica (pictured) by Per Fly, the Norwegian drama A Thousand Times Goodnight by Erik Poppe starring Juliette Binoche as a war photographer, and the Danish drama set in Ireland The Miracle by Simon Staho starring Sonja Richter and Ulrich Thomsen.
Venice, and in particular the festival’s sidebar Critics’ Week, is where Swedish directorial debuts have garnered major awards in the last couple of years. After Pernilla August (Beyond, 2010) and Gabriella Pichler (Eat, Sleep Die, 2012), a new Swedish female director - Anna Odell - will present her innovative debut, The Reunion. Meanwhile the established Lukas Moodysson will compete in the festival’s Orizzonti section with his feel good movie We Are the Best, and Trespassing Bergman (feature film version of the TV series Bergmans video) by Hynek Pallas and Jane Magnusson will screen at Venice Classics. The Danish documentary Pine Ridge by Swedish born Anna Eborn, about native American Indians living in the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, USA will screen out of competition at the 70th Venice International Film festival (August 28-September 7, 2013).
The non-competitive Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) which has become a key launching pad for European films in North America has announced so far three Nordic films for its 38th edition unspooling from September 5-15. Lukas Moodysson’s We Are the Best will screen as a Special Presentation, along with the Norwegian oil thriller Pioneer by Erik Skjoldbjærg, while Sex, Drugs & Taxation (Spies & Glistrup) by the Dane Christoffer Boe will have its International Premiere as part of the Vanguard sidebar. The full TIFF programme has not been finalised yet.
As for San Sebastian (September 20-28), the only Nordic selection so far is the Swedish romantic comedy Love & Lemons by Teresa Fabik, screening at the Culinary Zinema section, Film & Gastronomy section.
Nordisk Film & TV Fond has supported The Keeper of Lost Causes, Waltz with Monica, A Thousand Times Goodnight, The Miracle, We Are the Best, Pioneer and Sex, Drugs & Taxation.