Göteborg Film Festival Unveils Competition Titles Including Daniel Espinosa’s ‘Madame Luna’ & Honorary Dragon Award For ‘Borgen’ Actress Sidse Babett Knudsen

Zac Ntim
·4 min read
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The Göteborg Film Festival has unveiled the competition titles selected for its 47th edition, which runs from January 26 to February 4. (Scroll down for the full list).

Göteborg is split into four competition strands. The main strand is the Nordic Competition, which features nine films from the Nordic region. The competition’s winner takes home the Dragon Award and a SEK 400,000 ($38,000) cash prize. The rest of the festival comprises the Nordic Documentary Competition, the Ingmar Bergman Competition for first-time filmmakers, and the International Competition.

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Among the Nordic highlights is Madame Luna, Swedish filmmaker Daniel Espinosa’s return to Nordic filmmaking following a series of Hollywood titles such as Morbius and Safe House. Inspired by real-life events, the film follows an Eritrean refugee who gets stuck in Libya and becomes a notorious human trafficker known as “Mama Luna” with deep ties to the Italian Mafia. When she is forced to flee to Italy due to a change in fortunes, she experiences the same hardships endured by the people she exploited. Nikolaj Arcel’s period feature The Promised Land, starring Mads Mikkelsen, will also play in competition alongside Niclas Larsson’s Mother, Couch, Ernst De Geer’s The Hypnosis, and buzzy Finish title The Missile from filmmaker Miia Tervo.

Other stand-out titles include Milk Teeth by Sophia Bösch, which screens in the Bergman competition, and As the Tide Comes In from duo Juan Palacios and Sofie Husum Johannesen. Göteborg’s international competition — which screens buzzy titles from across last year’s fall festivals — includes Alice Rohrwacher’s latest La Chimera, Sofia Exarchou’s Animal, and Fremont by Babak Jalali.

Today it was also announced that Danish actress Sidse Babett Knudsen will receive the festival’s Nordic Honorary Dragon Award. She will pick up the award alongside a screening of her 2023 feature Club Zero on January 30. The screening will be followed by an on-stage Q&A. Other high-profile in-conversation sessions include a talk between Cannes Film Festival head Thierry Frémaux and two-time Palme d’Or winner Ruben Östlund. The festival has said the pair will discuss “the current cinematic landscape and film festivals, exploring their past, present, and future.” The talk will be moderated by Göteborg head Jonas Holmberg, who steps down after this year’s edition. Holmberg will be replaced by Pia Lundberg, formerly Counsellor for Cultural Affairs at the Embassy of Sweden in London.

Here’s the full list announced today:

Nordic Competition

Handling the Undead, dir: Thea Hvistendahl (Norway/Sweden/Greece),
My Wonderful Stranger, dir: Johanna Pyykkö (Norway/France/Sweden),
The Missile, dir: Miia Tervo (Finland/Estonia),
The Hypnosis, dir: Ernst De Geer (Sweden/Norway/France),
The Promised Land, dir: Nikolaj Arcel (Denmark/Germany/Sweden/Norway),
Solitude, dir: Ninna Pálmadóttir (Iceland/Slovakia/France),
Mother, Couch, dir: Niclas Larsson (US/Sweden/Denmark),
Eternal, dir: Ulaa Salim (Denmark/Iceland/Norway),
Madame Luna, dir: Daniel Espinosa (Sweden),
Kalak, dir: Isabella Eklöf (Denmark/Norway/The Netherlands/Sweden/Finland/Greenland).

Ingmar Bergman Competition:

Me, Maryam, the Children and 26 Others, dir: Farshad Hashemi (Iran/Germany/Czech Republic)
The Dreamer, dir: Anaïs Tellenne (France/Belgium)
Mimang, dir: Kim Taeyang (South Korea)
Heartless, dir: Nara Normande and Tião(Brasil/France/Italy)
Milk Teeth, dir: Sophia Bösch (Germany/Swizerland)
Hoard, dir: Luna Carmoon (Great Britain)
Dormitory, dir: Nehir Tuna (Turkey/Germany/France)
Borrowed Time, dir: Choy Ji (China).

Nordic Documentary Competition

Ibelin, dir: Benjamin Ree (Norway),
Shard, dir:  Sara Broos (Sweden),
As the Tide Comes In, dir: Juan Palacios and Sofie Husum Johannesen (Denmark),
Life is Beautiful, dir: Mohamed Jabaly (Norway/Palestine/Qatar),
The Andersson Brothers, dir: Johanna Bernhardson(Sweden/Finland),
Fifteen Zero Three Nineteenth of January Two Thousand Sixteen, dir: Petra Bauer and Marius Dybwad Brandrud (Sweden),
Leaving Jesus, dir: Ellen Fiske (Sweden/Denmark/Norway),
Homecoming, dir: Suvi West and Anssi Kömi (Finland/Norway).

International Competition

Girls Will Be Girls, dir: Shuchi Talati (India/France/US/Norway)
Red Island, dir: Robin Campillo (France/Belgium/Madagascar)
Blaga’s Lessons, dir: Stephan Komandarev (Bulgaria/Germany)
The Universal Theory, dir:  Timm Kröger (Germany/Austria/Switzerland)
Fremont, dir: Babak Jalali (US)
Sujo, dir: Fernanda Valadez and Astrid Rondero (Mexico/France/US)
Totém, dir: Lila Avilés (Mexico/France/Denmark/The Netherlands)
La Chimera, dir: Alice Rohrwacher (Italy/France/Switzerland)
Days of Happiness, dir: Chloé Robichaud (Canada)
Great Absence, dir: Kei Chika-ura (Japan)
Animal, dir: Sofia Exarchou (Greece/Austria/Romania/Cyprus/Bulgaria)
There’s Still Tomorrow, dir: Paola Cortellesi (Italy)
Banel & Adama, dir: Ramata-Toulaye Sy (France/Senegal/Mali/Qatar)
Woman of…, dir: Malgorzata Szumowska and Michal Englert (Poland/Sweden)
The Reeds, dir: Cemil Ağacıkoğlu (Turkey/Bulgaria)
Puan, dir: María Alché and Benjamín Naishtat(Argentina/Italy/Germany/France/Brasil)
Do You Love Me?, dir: Tonia Noyabrova (Ukraine/Sweden)
Ichiko, dir: Akihiro Toda (Japan).

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