After a decade below the helm of Jonas Holmberg, the 48^th Göteborg Movie pageant will inaugurate a brand new period below the reign of creative director Pia Lundberg. Huge names anticipated between Jan 24-Feb. 2 absorb Julie Delpy, Thomas Vinterberg, Mohammad Rasoulof, Joshua Oppenheimer, Thomas Alfredson and Trine Dyrholm. 

On this unique interview, the previous head of worldwide on the Swedish Movie Institute and Cultural Attaché on the Swedish Embassy in London opens up in regards to the challenges of programming the most important movie pageant within the Nordics.

That is your first gig as creative director. What do you’re feeling you are bringing to the pageant, along with your distinctive expertise, background and competence?

Pia Lundberg: My predecessor Jonas Holmberg who labored a decade for the pageant, was massively skilled so I’ve massive sneakers to fill. However I consider that what I carry is a deep understanding of festivals by means of my very own 10-year tenure as head of worldwide for the Swedish Movie Institute. Then, I’ve a big community within the business and an expertise from completely different cultural fields, particularly from my years in London as Cultural Attaché. Working throughout opera, theatre, movie, music was very inspiring and that broadened my information of varied artwork kinds. Then I’ve a journalistic background which is an enormous assist throughout all organisations. Jonas shared this with me.

Jonas Holmberg mentioned Göteborg holds a selected spot within the Nordic movie panorama. Do you agree?

Completely. If anybody has to attend one movie pageant within the Nordics within the calendar 12 months, then Göteborg is the place to be! From a global perspective, you may get an summary of what’s occurring within the Nordic movie and TV business and the place to find thrilling new voices. No different pageant within the area gives such a complete overview of Nordic movies. Then we’ve a really robust and dependable native viewers, accounting for the 270,000-plus ticket gross sales in cinemas and on-line. That’s fairly a mind-blowing determine. The opening movie can also be obtainable in additional than 40 cinemas throughout Sweden and eight pageant titles attain out to Swedish cinemagoers exterior Göteborg.

How was your first Göteborg programming expertise? How many movies did you and your workforce watch to reach to your last quantity and what challenges did you meet?

It was a real jigsaw. Along with our 15 or so programmers and members of our programming committee, we’ve screened round 3,000 movies to finish up with our curated slate of 270 movies from 83 nations, to be screened in 21 cinema theaters in Göteborg and on-line. It’s been demanding but additionally a real pleasure and honor to be a part of that course of.

Relating to challenges, one of many greatest issues we confronted was the change of dates of each Sundance and Rotterdam, whereas we needed to stick to our unique dates for various causes. Often Sundance is simply earlier than Göteborg, which works easily as we will inherit a few of their titles, however they delayed their occasion, very a lot due to the best way the U.S. Martin Luther King vacation falls this 12 months. Then we’re often operating parallel to Rotterdam, however they are going to kick-start one week after us this 12 months. Due to this fact, the competitors for titles was more durable than ever. Fortunately, we’ve pleasant relationships with each festivals and coordinated our programming efforts. Sharing Nordic movies with them has at all times been a really engaging mixture.

You’ve got as many as 25 world premieres. Is that this an distinctive quantity?

It’s a bit greater than prior to now few years the place we had below 20 world premieres, however earlier than COVID-19 we have been on the identical stage.

What about gender steadiness? What’s the share of movies helmed by girls?

I’m not absolutely happy as we’ve round 44% of feminine administrators. The extent has been taking place lately which is unlucky contemplating our efforts and aspiration to succeed in gender parity. On the worldwide aspect, the hole was even larger with roughly 75/25 male versus feminine administrators among the many movies we noticed. On the Nordic aspect we’re at round 47.5% for the pageant movies. We’re additionally in a scenario in Sweden the place fewer movies are being made and public coin administered by the Swedish Movie Institute has gone down. Fairly a couple of Swedish indie movies nonetheless get financed, however these are extra usually directed by males.

Will this matter be on the agenda of your annual Movie Coverage Summit in Gothenburg?

Our movie coverage days on Jan. 24-26 will dig deep into a few of the most pressing points affecting Swedish movie. I’m truly a part of a bunch of consultants – alongside Ruben Östlund and Movie i Väst’s Tomas Eskilsson, as an illustration – arrange by the Swedish Tradition Minister, as a part of the federal government’s present inquiry into the best way to rework nationwide movie coverage. Outcomes of the analysis paper will probably be printed late February.

The under-financing of Swedish movie – with funding half the dimensions of the manufacturing price range in Denmark and 3 times lower than in Norway – has been a problem for fairly a while. Final fall, the Swedish Movie Institute needed to sack 20 individuals as a part of cost-cutting measures. One endemic downside which we’ve seemed into is the low nationwide market share of Swedish movies in comparison with Denmark and Norway [17% in 2023 versus 25% and 27% respectively].

Going again to programming, some festivals have skilled pressures from political teams or people over ongoing conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza. Was this at the back of your thoughts?

We didn’t really feel any political strain however the best way to showcase conflicts and to present a voice to filmmakers in opposition to authoritarian regimes was very a lot on the forefront of our thoughts, particularly after we designed our program focus about disobedience and civil resistance. We’re dwelling advanced occasions, with wars, local weather change, democracy reducing. Within the Nordics, we see younger individuals being disengaged in main political and social issues. For this reason we felt that disobedience was an ideal theme to spotlight at present’s challenges dealing with our democracies. We wished to present some hope, and to level out that one single particular person saying ‘no’ could make a distinction. We’ve tried to showcase the subject of disobedience from completely different views with our 14 options and 6 shorts within the Disobedience program. We’re extremely happy, as an illustration, to welcome Iranian filmmaker Mohammad Rasoulof who will give a chat Jan. 30, following the screening of “The Seed of the Sacred Fig.”

Would you agree that being disobedient or defiant is a part of Göteborg’s DNA? Göteborg has created in the previous few years revolutionary initiatives to shake individuals’s views on the massive display screen experience-with a single screening on an island throughout COVID, Ruben Östlund’s directing the viewers or an AI model of Ingmar Bergman’s “Persona”….

It is a enjoyable query truly, and sure, that is within the pageant’s DNA and now we’re specializing in this matter in a extra concentrated manner. This 12 months once more, we can have shock occasions through the pageant the place we are going to give dwell examples of disobedience. Be careful for the pageant opening the place extra will probably be revealed!

Eirik Svensson’s drama “Secure Home” will kick-start the pageant and Mads Hedegaard’s prehistoric epic “Stranger” is the closing movie. Why this selection?

It’s at all times troublesome to discover a appropriate opening movie. It must be Nordic, of excellent high quality, ideally a world premiere, a movie obtainable for screening in cinemas and on-line. I’m very proud of “Secure Home,” primarily based on the real-life story of Lindis Hurum, basic director of Medical doctors With out Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières in Norway. It’s a gripping drama asking ethical questions and pointing at troublesome decision-making below quite a lot of strain. The appearing, particularly from Norwegian actress Kristine Kujath Thorp, is at its greatest. As for “Stranger,” it’s one other courageous and refreshing movie from the Nordic area – an distinctive Danish movie going again in time to 4,000 BC. The director and his workforce have even re-created two pre-Indo-European languages. It’s a really formidable undertaking. 

The Nordic competitors is your ‘star’ program. What number of movies have been submitted, and the way would you describe this 12 months’s slate? It looks as if Denmark dominates with three out of 9 chosen titles…

We collaborated carefully with Nordic institutes and manufacturing corporations. I feel we’ve screened round 70 movies all year long,  then picked essentially the most excellent ones. It’s been a really thrilling journey and I want we might have included extra of them. You point out Denmark and certainly the nation had a really robust movie 12 months, along with Norway. Sweden suffered from a decrease manufacturing quantity and lack of high-profile titles. However we’re proud to showcase on this part the world premieres of two promising debuts by feminine administrators. Fanny Ovesen’s “Stay a Little” is an exquisite and courageous female-driven title about sexual abuse, and Maria Eriksson-Hecht’s “Kevlar Soul”, a social-realist drama, within the Andrea Arnold vein, a style that’s maybe missing in Sweden, though “Paradise Burning” was additionally set in an identical atmosphere.

Nordic documentaries are usually chart-topping the most important doc festivals on the planet. How does your doc competitors slate appear like?
I’m very glad about our documentaries vying for a Dragon Award. I’d spotlight “Ultras” which dives into the subculture of soccer ultras on the planet, which can display screen as a world premiere, and “Mr No one In opposition to Putin” which can come straight from Sundance. It’s a singular perception into the Russian warfare propaganda machine.

Within the worldwide competitors you’ve got a wide-ranging number of 18 titles, together with the worldwide premieres of the Australian jail drama “Inside” starring Man Pierce, Canada’s “Measures for a Funeral” and one world premiere from Spain: “Pheasant Island”. Are you able to remark?

We’re very glad about this programme, the place the viewers is invited to vote for the perfect movie. “Pheasant Island” was chosen by our programmer Camilla Larsson. It’s an thrilling thriller by a debut filmmaker-Asier Urbierta which delves into border management and its results on human beings. It might have been programmed in our Disobedience slot. Spain is flourishing creatively. I used to be invited to San Sebastian with a bunch of programmers and was tremendous impressed by the manufacturing stage and high quality of the movies.

You’ve got one other Spanish debut-David Pérez Sañudo’s drama “The Final Romantics” in your Ingmar Bergman competitors part devoted to excellent first and second options…

Sure, this part is Göteborg’s prime showcase and we’re the one pageant on the planet in a position to make use of his title for a contest. We’re proud to have eight titles from eight completely different nations, together with one worldwide premiere, “Then, the Fog” from Argentina, and two European bows: the South-Korean drama “Land of Morning Calm” and queer Indian drama “Cactus Pears.”

Nordic sequence have a primary place in your business sidebar TV Drama Imaginative and prescient. But a handful of Swedish sequence will even get a red-carpet pageant therapy together with SVT’s “Faithless” and TV4’s “The Congregation” Season 2. Are you planning to develop the pageant house for sequence?

Not likely. However some sequence should be showcased on the massive display screen, corresponding to final 12 months’s “Painkiller” by Gabriela Pichler. This 12 months we’re thrilled to display screen in its entirety Tomas Alfredson’s stunning “Faithless.” “The Congregation” Season 2 is being showcased in collaboration with TV4.

Julie Delpy, Thomas Vinterberg are being honored, and Joshua Oppenheimer, Mohammad Rasoulof, Trine Dyrholm, Dag Johan Haugerud are anticipated on the pink carpet. How troublesome is it to draw massive names?
There’s clearly quite a lot of competitors. And naturally, Göteborg, late January, with a mixture of rain, snow and plenty of wind may not be a star-pulling vacation spot. However we’ve despatched invites out and the response has been very constructive as expertise around the globe acknowledge our particular spot within the international pageant calendar. We are able to’t wait to shock and entertain our viewers.