As August 2020 saw increasing infection rates, travel restrictions and quarantine rules, the Norwegian International Film Festival in Haugesund resorted to its plan B. Luckily, the team had a good one, adapted for digital solutions and even with a hand-picked physical audience for the national Amanda Awards ceremony (the winners, basically). This year’s edition (running from 21-27 August), the 49^th since it started in 1972, promises a real return to form. Plan A has A-list festival favourites, and myriad audience and industry attendees. Almost business as usual.

Opening with Eskil Vogt’s Cannes spine-chiller The Innocents [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Eskil Vogt
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intervista: Thomas Daneskov
scheda film], the programme offers 62 features and 23 short films. Domestic presence is at record strength, with 14 Norwegian features and 15 shorts in the line-up, including six world premieres, among them Paul Tunge’s architecture documentary Mind of Modernism and Stay Home, an ambitious account of the pandemic by Maren Victoria Thingnæs and Marianne Mørk, following a group of children from eight different countries over 11 months. The Danish-Norwegian effort Margrete – Queen of the North [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Charlotte Sieling
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The Nordic Focus section offers an ample array of recent festival fare, such as Juho Kuosmanen’s Cannes Grand Prix winner Compartment No. 6 [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Juho Kuosmanen
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intervista: Nathalie Álvarez Mesén
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intervista: Ninja Thyberg
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scheda film] and Christoffer Boe’s A Taste of Hunger [+leggi anche:
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scheda film]. Documentary picks include Jonas Poher Rasmussen’s Oscar-mooted Flee [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Jonas Poher Rasmussen
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intervista: Kristina Lindström e Krist…
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intervista: Jasmila Žbanić
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intervista: Kaouther Ben Hania
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intervista: Elie Grappe
scheda film] by Elie Grappe as well as Julia Ducournau’s red-hot Palme d’Or winner Titane [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Julia Ducournau, Vincent L…
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intervista: Thomas Robsahm
scheda film], directed by Thomas Robsahm and Aslaug Holm, which was 12 years in the making. The story of Norway’s greatest 1980s pop sensation, which world-premiered at Tribeca in June, is now, at long last, landing in the motherland, with a Haugesund-hosted national premiere on 23 August.

True to tradition, the festival kicks off with the Amanda Awards on 21 August, held, as always, at the Festiviteten concert hall. Leading this year’s favourites is Yngvild Sve Flikke’s dramedy Ninjababy [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Kristine Kujath Thorp
intervista: Yngvild Sve Flikke
scheda film], with 11 nominations, followed by Eirik Svensson’s historical World War II drama Betrayed [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Itonje Søimer Guttormsen
scheda film], with eight. The big documentary contender is Benjamin Ree’s The Painter and the Thief [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Benjamin Ree
scheda film], an international favourite and Sundance winner, which has racked up five nominations.

The full programme of the Norwegian International Film Festival in Haugesund can be found here.