18/08/2009

On Thursday, the four-day New Nordic Films (NNF) market parallel to the Norwegian International Film Festival in Haugesund will welcome over 300 participants from 25 countries, including 69 buyers, an absolute record for the event headed by Gyda Velvin Myklebust.

“We have a clear increase in world buyers attending this year, plus many first-time representatives from South Korea and Indonesia,” said Myklebust.

Twenty-four new Nordic films will be screening, including 18 market premieres, such as Teresa Fabik’s opening film Starring Maja (Sweden); Morten Giese’s Love and Rage (Denmark), selected in competition at the 2009 Montreal World Film Festival; and animated Swedish film Metropia by Tarek Saleh, selected for this year’s Critics’ Week at Venice.

NNF is also an opportunity for international buyers and festival programmers to get a taste of upcoming Nordic titles, and for producers to discuss projects with potential partners. Fourteen Works in Progress will be presented by the films’ directors and/or producers. Those include Per Fly’s The Woman Who Dreamt of a Man, Kristian Petri’s Bad Faith and Fridrik Thor Fridriksson’s Mamma Gógó. The veteran Icelandic filmmaker will also take part in a Nordic Directors Seminar.

For the first time, two heavy players from the US film industry – Michael Barker (co-founder of Sony Pictures Classics) and Christian Vesper (SVP of acquisitions for IFC TV and Sundance Channel) – will attend NNF to give their views on Nordic films and tips on how to reach the US market.

The Nordic Co-production and Film Financing Forum (August 21-22) will again focus on co-productions with Germany and Canada. Seventeen projects will be pitched by their producers, including Hullabaloo, the new film by Iceland’s Gunnar B. Gudmundsson (Astropia), and Prince of Trash, by Finland’s Raimo O Niemi (Mystery of the Wolf [+see also:
trailer
film profile]).