"Whether in film, television or book publishing, the Scandinavian crime genre - Nordic noir - has never been hotter, both at home and across the world," the American Film Institute announced last week (July 3) to launch a summer programme of 29 films "from recent international sensations (Sweden's Millennium Trilogy, Norway's rising star Jo Nesbø) to classics from earlier decades". The series at the AFI Silver Theatre and Cultural Center in Silver Spring (Washington D.C.) runs through September 18.

Classics include the 40^th anniversary of The Laughing Policeman, the 1973 adaption of Swedish authors Per Wahlöö and Maj Sjöwall's novel by US director Stuart Rosenberg (who is also known for Cool Hand Luke), and Swedish director Bo Widerberg's Man on the Roof (1976), from the same authors. Also the full - and original - Millennium Trilogy (2009), from Swedish author Stieg Larsson, directed by Niels Arden Oplev (1) and Daniel Alfredson (2, 3).

Finnish director Aki Kaurismäki (photo) is represented by three titles, comprising The Match Factory Girl (1981) - his 61-minute spin on Danish author Hans Christian Andersen's adventure of The Little Match Girl, where the first line is spoken after 14 minutes, as lead actress Kati Outinen enters a bar and asks for a pieni olut (a small beer) and everybody knows this is a tragedy and many will die. Among the Finnish classics also Mikko Niskanen's Eight Deadly Shots (1972), a five-hour TV film starring himself and considered a local masterpiece.

Danish entries are dominated by Nicolas Winding Refn's Pusher trilogy - Pusher (1996), Pusher II: With Blood on My Hands (2004), Pusher III: I'm the Angel of Death (2005), adding his US production of Drive (2011), which earned him Best Director laurels in Cannes. More Danish: Lars von Trier's The Element of Crime (1984), Ole Bornedal's Nightwatch (1994) and the most recent, Michael Noer's Northwest [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Michael Noer
film profile] (2013).

The Norwegian selection is spearheaded by Morten Tyldum's international success, Headhunters [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (2011), from Norwegian author Jo Nesbø's novel, with Hans Petter Moland's A Somewhat Gentle Man [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Hans Petter Moland
film profile] (2010). Iceland contributes three titles, among others Óskar Thór Axelsson's thriller Black's Game [+see also:
trailer
film profile], "based on some shit that actually happened."