With its team having spent days in preparations, not least concerning the different pandemic-related scenarios, the Göteborg Film Festival is now ready to kick off its 45^th edition in a hybrid form of physical and digital events. “Last year’s completely digital edition became a unique audience success, with over 400,000 visits,” notes artistic director Jonas Holmberg, who gained a creative concept in the process. “It showed us how great the interest in festival films really is all over the country. We want to continue to explore this practice. We think it will benefit both audience and filmmakers, even though it does challenge some traditional ways of industry thinking.” The ten-day event runs from 28 January-6 February, with 200 films from 80 countries set to be screened. Of these, about 50 titles will be available in the digital “salon” for Swedish viewers, with three to four online premieres per day, playing in parallel with theatre screenings for 24 hours. For physical visitors, safety routines and vaccination checks together with updated guidelines and regulations issued by the Swedish authorities must be adhered to.

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Opening the festival is Sweden’s So Damn Easy Going (see the news), the feature debut by Christoffer Sandler, a coming-of-age tale about the vagaries of ADHD and young love, and one of the 50 world premieres on the agenda this year. Sandler’s film is also one of the eight contenders for the 400,000 SEK Dragon Award in the Nordic Competition, together with Denmark’s As in Heaven [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Tea Lindeburg
scheda film] by Tea Lindeburg, Finland’s Heartbeast [+leggi anche:
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scheda film] by Aino Suni, Sweden’s Maya Nilo (Laura) by Lovisa Sirén and Sweden’s Excess Will Save Us [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Morgane Dziurla-Petit
scheda film] by Morgane Dziurla-Petit, all debut fiction features. Added competition comes from three Cannes favourites: Finland’s Compartment No. 6 [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Juho Kuosmanen
scheda film] by Juho Kuosmanen, Iceland’s Lamb [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Valdimar Jóhannsson
scheda film] by Valdimar Jóhannsson and Norway’s The Innocents [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Eskil Vogt
scheda film] by Eskil Vogt.

The other major competitions, the Nordic Documentary Competition and the Ingmar Bergman Competition, “for debut features of a dynamic or experimental nature”, will sport eight entries each, with the International Competition consisting of ten contenders. Career awards will be received by Italian director Luca Guadagnino (Honorary Dragon Award) and Swedish actress Rebecca Ferguson (Nordic Honorary Dragon Award), and physical attendees include Bille August, Lucile Hadzihalilovic, Valdimar Jóhannsson, Juho Kuosmanen, Eskil Vogt and, it is expected, Sweden’s newly appointed Minister of Culture, Jeanette Gustafsdotter.

In the grand (sometimes guignol) tradition of some of the most innovative cinema gimmicks since the days of William Castle – one vividly remembers the gynaecological cinema chair, the sarcophagus and the lighthouse-for-one screenings of recent editions – the festival will this year bring in a hypnotist, ready and eager to mesmerise a full audience. Three titles – Shirin Neshat’s Land of Dreams [+leggi anche:
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scheda film], Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Memoria [+leggi anche:
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scheda film] and Christian Tafdrup’s Speak No Evil [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Christian Tafdrup
scheda film] – have been handpicked for the performance of this feat, an integral part of the special theme for 2022, “Focus: Disorder”. As the song continues: a splendid time is guaranteed for all.

The full programme can be found here.