Scandinavian films – a list 2007
[Looking to broaden my knowledge (or reduce my great ignorance) on Scandinavian films (a part from Bergman and Kaurismaki!), I found this article reviewing the 30th Göteborg International Film Festival - The article gives a good overview of what was on during the festivals. I have not seen any of the movies yet - safe for the brilliant Den brysomme mannen -, so i cannot comment, but some of them are on my list. ]
[the original article appeared here]
The End of Innocence
Scandinavian Films at the 30th Göteborg International Film Festival
26 January – 5 February 2007
by Mattias Frey
The 30th Göteborg International Film Festival proved why it is Scandinavia’s superior film festival. Featuring 450 films from 65 countries, the festival balanced its wide breadth with a strong concentration of new Nordic films as well as a singular chance to catch up on all 2006 Swedish premieres.
The local press was ecstatic about this year’s crop of domestic productions. Sweden’s largest daily Dagens Nyheter declared the national film crisis over. This sentiment was both correct and unfounded. The Swedish film industry was in fact never in a true crisis. Surely, with the exception of perhaps Roy Andersson’s Sånger från andra våningen (Songs from the Second Floor, 2000) and Lukas Moodysson’s projects, there has not been any sign that a cinéma des auteurs will emerge to assume the tradition of Ingmar Bergman and Bo Widerberg. Instead, the leading Swedish films of the last 15 years have been quality genre films with an unmistakable local specificity: one direction, for example, is the large wave of milieu studies featuring immigrants, such as Josef Fares’ popular comedies Jalla! Jalla! (2000) and Kopps (2003) or the excellent Före stormen (Before the Storm, 2000) and Om jag vänder mig om (Daybreak, Björn Runge, 2003). This attitude towards national cinema — that Swedish film should tell above all stories about living in the society rather than experimenting formally — has only continued in this year’s crop.
