Fallen Leaves, Sex, Crossing Among Six Films Selected to Compete forNordic

Posted by Aldo Pusey on Thursday, July 4, 2024

Forget about “The Magnificent Seven”: It’s time for The Magnificent Six, competing for the Nordic Council Film Prize this year.

The nominees – consisting of four fiction and two documentary feature films and each representing one of the Nordic countries – were announced by Nordisk Film & TV Fond at the Norwegian International Film Festival in Haugesund.

Denmark is represented by “The Son and the Moon,” directed by Roja Pakari and Emilie Adelina Monies. Written by Pakari – documenting her own struggle with cancer – and Denniz Göl Bertelsen, it’s produced by Sara Stockmann for Sonntag Pictures. 

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“Twice Colonized” by Lin Alluna, hailing from Greenland, was written by Aaju Peter and Alluna. Pic is produced by Emile Hertling Péronard for Ánorâk Film, Red Marrow Media and EyeSteelFilm.

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“I’m extremely happy about the nomination and the fact that Greenland is now, for only the second time, represented at the Nordic Council Film Prize. ‘Twice Colonized’ deals with the colonial history of the Nordic countries. It’s a history that the people of Nordics are not often confronted with, which makes it all the more important,” Emile Hertling Péronard told Variety.

“We should not shy away from these truths, and if we, like Aaju Peter, are able to talk about the dark chapters of our past, we will also be able to create a better and brighter future. ‘Twice Colonized’ is a collaboration between Inuit in both Greenland and Canada, and this nomination is an opportunity to show that our people exist far beyond the colonial borders of the Nordic nation-states. Hopefully, in the future, we will be able to create many more of these cross-border collaborations.”

“Crossing” (Sweden), directed and written by Levan Akin – also behind “And Then We Danced” – and produced by Mathilde Dedye for French Quarter Film, was also selected. So, too, was Norway’s “Sex.” Directed and written by Dag Johan Haugerud – and the first part of a trilogy that will continue with “Love” – it’s produced by Yngve Sæther and Hege Hauff Hvattum for Motlys.

“Making a film called ‘Sex’ calls for all sorts of jokes and misunderstandings during production, everything from being summoned to a ‘sex-meeting’ to emails being censored because someone had written ‘sex-props’ in the subject field,” joked the director back in February.

“As for the screenplay, there aren’t that many jokes about sex in it. Some awkward humor, yes. But the main point has been about trying to show the short span between ecstatic pleasure and shame. There are – and might always be – two sides of the same coin when it comes to sex, which also means that the uncomfortable and the funny sit quite tight.”

Baltasar Kormákur will compete with “Touch” (Iceland), written by the director and Ólafur Jóhann Ólafsson and produced by Agnes Johansen and Kormákur for RVK Studios.

“This is a very personal film and a departure from some of my bigger films made for US studios,” admitted Kormákur, also behind “Everest” and “Adrift.” 

“I’d been looking for a story that [would allow me to] channel my experience and relationship with love over the years, and express more of my sensuality. It’s also quite different from what you are used to seeing from Icelandic cinema as it travels the world and takes on one of history’s most horrific crimes of war.”

In the film, a widower shuts his restaurant in Iceland. As his health is declining, he decides to solve a mystery that has haunted him for years: when he was a student in London, his Japanese girlfriend and her father vanished without a trace.

“I have been very pleased with the reactions, both from the critics and the audiences. ‘Touch’ is now the biggest film of the year in Iceland, having just topped ‘Dune 2.’  I wasn’t sure if a slow-burning film that’s more in Japanese than Icelandic, about a cross-cultural love, would find that kind of audience.”

Finally, Finland’s living legend Aki Kaurismäki – who won the very first Nordic Council Film Prize back in 2002 for “The Man Without a Past” – will now have another shot thanks to “Fallen Leaves,” produced by Misha Jaari and Mark Lwoff for Sputnik Oy and Bufo.

“We are super happy with the way the film has been received around the world. Being nominated for the Nordic Council Film Prize is another happy occasion,” said Jaari at Haugesund.

The award ­– recognizing a full-length feature film produced in the Nordic countries and released in cinemas – comes with a prize of DKK 300,000 ($44,557), to be shared among the director, screenwriter and producer.

The winner will be unveiled online on Oct. 22 by RÚV – Icelandic Broadcasting Service. Previous winners include “Empire” by Frederikke Aspöck, awarded last year, “Lamb,” “Flee,” “Louder Than Bombs,” “The Hunt” or “Antichrist.”

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