18/07/2011

Poland’s New Horizons – the 11th Wroclaw International Film Festival – will highlight Norwegian cinema in a special section, Norway Expanded, during this year’s July 21-31 showcase. The programme will also include concerts and art exhibitions.

Organised with the Norwegian Film Institute, the Norwegian focus will include an animation workshop, a talent seminar, a co-production forum, and the publishing of a book on Norwegian film and film history (in Polish), edited by the institute’s Jan Erik Holst.

The Norwegian film programme will be opened by Sarah Johnsen’s Upperdog [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (photo), screening in the festival’s 200-seat open air cinema on July 22, and followed by 10, an extensive programme of shorts and documentaries, adding a retrospective of Anja Breien.

The selection will present two Norwegian-Polish co-productions: Marius Holst’s King of Devil’s Island (41Ž2 Fiktion, with Poland’s Opus Film), and Jerzy Skolimowski’s award-winning Essential Killing [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Jerzy Skolimowski
film profile] (Skopia Film, with Norway’s Cylinder Productions).

Eighty producers, distributors and sales agents have registered for the co-production forum between July 26-28, with case studies of King of Devil’s Island, a local top-grosser, Essential Killing [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Jerzy Skolimowski
film profile], which scooped four Polish Eagle awards and prizes in Venice and Mar del Plata.

Ten film projects will be pitched in the forum, including five from Norway: One Last Chance, The Grass Widows (ÅseSvenheim Drivenes/Sant & Usant), Polak Potrafi (Igor Devold/Devold), Egg (Maipo Film & TV Produksjon AS), and Norge (Storm Studios).

”Poland is already becoming an important market for Norwegian films, and Wroclaw’s initiative will bring our two film nations even closer together,” explained the institute’s head of promotion and international relations Stine Helgeland.