16/09/2016 - The leading Nordic festival for documentaries and shorts opens today and is not only showing films in theatres

Nordisk Panorama, which was launched in 1990 as a touring festival in the five Nordic countries, has since 2013 been located in Malmö, Southern Sweden, where it programmes screenings not only in the cinemas, but also in art museums, exhibition halls, libraries and other cultural venues.

The event is hard to avoid: over six days, starting today (16 September), it will also project films onto the city’s building facades (A Wall Is a Screen), and will combine swimming and screenings at the Poolcinema. There will be virtual reality and interactive experiences aplenty in The Orgasm Room, plus Welcome to Krabstadt and VROOM, as well as a Knit-a-long-Cinema, Boat Dinner and Film Discussion, not to mention the Bike Like Zlatan Tour, following in the footsteps of Swedish footballer Zlatan Ibrahimovic, who was born in Malmö.

Ibrahimovic is the star of Swedish directors Fredrik and Magnus Gertten’s Becoming Zlatan, one of the 14 contenders for Best Nordic Documentary and an €11,000 prize sponsored by the Nordic pubcasters. The programme – and the festival – will be opened by Norwegian director Benjamin Ree’s Magnus [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile], portraying Magnus Carlsen, who at 22 became World Chess Champion and was named one of the most influential people alive by Time magazine.

The selection of full-length docs also includes such international festival darlings as Danish directors Nicole Horanyi Nielsen’s Motley’s Law, and Mika Taanila and Jussi Eerola’s Return of the Atom, Norwegian director Aslaug Holm’s Brothers [+see also:
trailer
film profile], Russian director Andrei Nekrasov’s controversial The Magnitsky Act – Behind the Scenes (a Norwegian production), and Swedish directors Sara Broos’ Reflections and Jessica Nettelbladt’s MonaLisa Story.

There are 26 entries vying for Best Nordic Short Film (and a €7,000 award), and ten young, up-and-coming filmmakers will compete for Best New Nordic Voice, showing their first efforts – including three from Iceland (a small country with a population of 330,000, which produces up to six feature films annually): Katrin Bjorgvinsdottir (with Best Friends Forever and Ever), Thordur Palsson (Brothers) and Anna Gunndis Gudmundsdottir (I Can’t Be Seen Like This).