Göteborg Film Festival Unveils Competition Lineup, Sets Sidse Babett Knudsen Honor and Thierry Fremaux-Ruben Ostlund Conversation

Actors Ewan McGregor, Sidse Babett Knudsen, Renate Reinsve, Anders Danielsen Lie, directors Ruben Östlund, Ernst de Geer, Ramata-Toulaye Sy and Cannes Film Festival honcho Thierry Frémaux are some of the stellar guests set to walk the red carpet at the 47^th edition of Sweden’s Göteborg Film Festival.

This year’s Göteborg Fest unspools from Jan. 26 to Feb. 4.

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For his last run as artistic director of Scandinavia’s biggest film festival, Jonas Holmberg has selected 240 films from 82 countries, and what he calls “one of the strongest lineups ever” for Göteborg’s main Nordic competition strand. Among the highly anticipated titles vying for the coveted Best Nordic Film Dragon Award worth SEK 400,000 ($39,000), is Norway’s “Handling the Undead” by Thea Hvistendahl, set to kickstart the festival on the heels of its Sundance world premiere.

“This will be the first time we open with a zombie horror,” notes Holmberg, who looks forward to welcoming back Hvistendahl (five years after her debut “The Monkey and the Mouth”), as well as the horror pic’s co-stars Renate Reinsve and Anders Danielsen Lie of “The Worst Person in the World” fame.

Another female director returning to Göteborg is Finland’s Miia Tervo (“Aurora”), with the world premiere of “The Missile”. “It’s a wonderful, intelligent and charming dramedy,” said Holmberg about the satirical rehash of a true incident which shook Finnish Lapland, several decades ago: the landing of a Soviet missile.

Further Nordic Dragon contenders take in real-event inspired “Madame Luna,” from Sweden’s “Morbius” director Daniel Espianosa, about an Eritrean refugee who, trapped in Libya, becomes a notorious human trafficker.

Also making the cut is the Danish Oscar candidate “The Promised Land” for which Mads Mikkelsen picked up a European Film Award for best actor; Ernst de Geer’s Karlovy Vary winning satire “The Hypnosis”; and “Isabella Eklöf”’s Greenland-set drama “Kalak,” twice awarded at San Sebastian.

Meanwhile standout Nordic documentaries in competition include the Sundance selected “Ibelin” by Benjamin Ree (“The Painter and the Thief”); “Life is Beautiful,” for which Palestinian-born Mohamed Jabali won best director at IDFA; the world premieres of the Swedish docs “The Andersson Brothers” about Swedish legendary filmmaker Roy Andersson’s complex relationship with his brothers, filmed by his niece Johanna Berhardson, and “Leaving Jesus” by Tribeca winner Ellen Fisk (“Scheme Birds”).

Truthful to the festival’s double mission to showcase the best new Nordic films and top overseas films, meant to engage local auds, Holmberg has also selected 18 contenders for the best international film Dragon award, such as the Cannes competition entry “Banel & Adama” by Ramata-Toulaye Sy, Karlovy Vary winner “Fremont” by U.S-Iranian Babak Jalali, as well as eight debut features for the Ingmar Bergman Competition. The section will be presided over by “And Then We Danced”’s Levan Akin.
In line with the festival’s gender parity pledge, exactly 50% of the films in the program  have female directors.

As announced by Variety, British star Ewan McGregor ,who toplines Niclas Larsson’s “Mother Couch”, will be handed out an Honorary Dragon Award, while Sidse Babett Knudsen (“Borgen,” “Club Zero”), the Danish actor knighted both in her native country and in France, will receive the Nordic Honorary Dragon Award.

Revolutionary AI Film Experiment 

An important platform for discussions about the state of the film industry, Göteborg has staged in the past unique audience-engagement events such the isolated screening experiment on an island during COVID in 2021, a mass hypnosis in 2022 and Ruben Östlund’s direction of the Göteborg audience in 2023.

As part of the festival’s upcoming focus on artificial intelligence, this year’s conceptual centrepiece is Another Persona, an AI-generated film version of Ingmar Bergman’s classic “Persona”, in which Finnish actor Alma Pöysti (“Fallen Leaves”) replaces Liv Ullmann’s interpretation of the character Elisabet Vogler. The film experiment, set to screen only once at the festival, is produced by the Göteborg Film Festival with SF Studios, Gothenburg Film Studios, and the Ingmar Bergman Foundation.

“The film will definitely offer food for thought about acting and what we can do with A.I.,” said Holmberg who adds: “With our ‘Focus: Another Intelligence, we want to highlight the new different intelligence from human intelligence and reflect on art, technology and how we can be true human beings.”

Beyond the disruptive impact of AI, Göteborg has invited its honorary president and two-time Palme d’or winning director Östlund to engage in an on-stage conversation with Frémaux about the role of film festivals and the current film landscape.

“Ruben is of course very engaged on this topic. As our honorary president, he wants to push the debate about the relationship between filmmakers and the audience, and how we’re trying to create a better film culture,” noted Holmberg. “Then Thierry is a leading light as the head of the biggest film festival in the world. For me, it will be very special to moderate their conversation as this is my last Göteborg after 10 years as artistic director.“

The Frémaux/Östlund conversation will take place Jan. 31, as part of Göteborg’s industry sidebar Nordic Film Market, running Jan. 31 to Feb. 2.

Göteborg will close with the screening of the heart-warming Danish drama “Meeting in Rome” by Niklas Bendixen, in which Rolf Lassgård and Kristian Halken play Bodil Jørgensen’s love interests. “This film, carried by three outstanding Nordic actors, is a celebration of life, art and film history, with plenty of references to Rome as a cinematic city. It’s just the perfect note to end the festival,” said Holmberg.

Göteborg’s Nordic Film Lineup

“Eternal,” (Ulaa Salim, Denmark-Iceland-Norway)

“Handling the Undead,” (Thea Hvistendahl, Norway, Sweden, Greece)

“Kalak,” (Isabella Eklöf, Denmark, Norway, Netherlands, Sweden, Finland, Greenland) “Madame Luna,” (Daniel Espinosa, Sweden)

“Mother, Couch,” (Niclas Larsson, U.S., Sweden, Denmark)

“My Wonderful Stranger,” (Johanna Pyykkö, Norway, France, Sweden)

“The Hypnosis,” (Ernst De Geer, Sweden, Norway, France)

“The Missile,” (Miia Tervo, Finland/Estonia)

“The Promised Land,” (Nikolaj Arcel, Denmark, Germany, Sweden, Norway)

“Solitude” (Ninna Pálmadóttir, Iceland, Slovakia, France)

Nordic Documentary Competition

“The Andersson Brothers,” (Johanna Bernhardson, Sweden, Finland)

“As the Tide Comes In” (Juan Palacios, Sofie Husum Johannesen, Denmark)

“Fifteen Zero Three Nineteenth of January Two Thousand Sixteen,”(Petra Bauer, Marius Dybwad Brandrud, Sweden)

“Homecoming,” (Suvi West, Anssi Kömi, Finland,Norway).

“Ibelin,” (Benjamin Ree, Norway)

“Leaving Jesus,” (Ellen Fiske, Sweden, Denmark, Norway)

“Life is Beautiful,” (Mohamed Jabaly, Norway, Palestine, Qatar)

“Shard,” (Sara Broos, (Sweden)

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