14/03/2012 - Founded and headed by US actor Robert de Niro, New York’s Tribeca Film Festival covers all Scandinavia in its 2012 programme

Unspooling 250 films from all over the world between April 18-29, New York’s Tribeca Film Festival – founded and headed by US actor Robert de Niro - has covered all Scandinavian countries in its initial selection, which is currently being published.

Swedish director Levan Akin’s feature debut Certain People (pictured) will screen in the Viewpoints section for ”high-quality, edgy storytelling from around the globe”, while Finnish and Norwegian films have been included in Cinemania, which should ”tempt audience to experience the most exciting genre films from all corners of the world”.

Danish directors Christian Bonke and Andreas Koefoed’s Ballroom Dancer will participate in the World Documentary Competition. Produced by Sigrid Dyekjær and Eva Mulvad for Danish Documentary Production, the directors’ first feature-length documentary follows Ukranian former world Latin American Dance champion Slavik Kryklyvyy and his efforts to make a final comeback with his partner and lover, Anna Melnikova, with external pressure provoking an existential crisis.

Produced by Erika Stark for FilmLance International AB from Akin and Lisa Óstberg’s screenplay, Certain People is set at a party where Katinka is celebrating her birthday with friends, who are all upper-class, art-world, liberal bohemians in their thirties. Enter Linda, a blonde game-show hostess, who will soon stretch their hospitality and provoke a few cultural clashes in the Mia Mountain and Yohanna Idha starrer – Idha was named Best Actress for her role at the Stockholm International Film Festival.

Based on a story by Headhunters [+see also:
trailer
film profile]’ writer Jo Nesbø, Norwegian director Magnus Martens’s action-comedy Jackpot will have its international premiere in Cinemania. The Martin Sundland and Are Heidenstrøm production for Fantefilm is the story of four scruffy ex-criminals working at a factory producing plastic Christmas trees in a nowhere land between Norway and Sweden, with Mads Ousdal, Kyrre Hellum, Arthur Berning and Andreas Cappelen in the leads.

Finnish director Petri Kotwica’s Rat King will also have its first international showing in Cinemania, a co-production by Kai Nordberg and Kaarle Aho for Finland’s Making Movies and Estonia’s Allfilm Oü. Scripted by Kotwica for stars Julius Lavonen and Max Ovaska, the film follows a high-school student who's addicted to online gaming. His web friend Niki introduces him to a game that gives players real-life tasks, but when game and reality become one, whose life is at stake?