09/03/2005

The best of Scandinavian production, spiced up with several works made in Benelux, is on the program for the 18th edition of the Northern Cinema Festival which is starting today in Rouen. The event is a big hit among film pundits ; in the past, it has helped revealing many artists such as Lars von Trier, Thomas Vinterberg, Aki and Mika Kaurismaki, Liv Ullmann, Roy Andersson, and Bo Widerberg . This year, the festival —which finishes on the 20th of March— consists in : an official feature competition, a Panorama section entitled News from the North, a selection of films made in the Flanders in the past ten years, not to mention a full day dedicated to Swedish thrillers, several short film nights, a focus on Finnish cinema in the 50’s, special tributes to the Dutch producer and director Nico Crama and the Belgian film-maker Frank Buyens, as well as a selection of works from the Saxon province, in Germany.

The competition gathers eight candidates : two Danish features, In Your Hands by Annette K. Olesen and Villa Paranoïa by Erik Clausen, the Finnish movie For the Living and the Dead by Kari Paljakka, the Icelandic production Niceland by Fridrik Thor Fridriksson, two Norwegian films, My Jealous Barber by Annette Sjursen and Uno by Aksel Hennie and John Andreas Andersen, the Dutch movie South by Martin Koolhoven, and the Swedish hit Dalecarlians by Maria Blom.
The Northern Panorama section includes 20 fiction features and documentaries, amongst which we find no less than four Belgian productions (such as Aaltra, by Benoît Delépine and Gustave Kervern, and Cinéastes à tout prix by Frédéric Sojcher), three Danish ones (especially Wilbur by Lone Scherfig), two Estonian films, three Finnish works (for instance, The Big Sister by Zaida Bergroth and My Dear Brother by Mika Lehtinen), one icelandic feature (Cold Light by Hilmar Oddsson), one Norwegian production, a Swedish one ( Night and Day by Simon Staho), and six Dutch documentaries.

(Translated from French)