Ten films competing in the Nordic Competition

For the 36th time, the Göteborg Film Festival will hand out the award for best Nordic film, Dragon Award Best Nordic Film. All in all, ten films are included in the competition, with a prize sum of SEK 400 000 (approx. 36 000 €) handed out in cooperation with Region Västra Götaland and the City of Gothenburg. 

This year's nominees: 
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/)
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).

Honorary Dragon Award: Ewan McGregor

Göteborg Film Festival proudly presents the 2024 Honorary Dragon Award recipient, Ewan McGregor. The acclaimed actor will attend the Göteborg Film Festival to receive the award, participate in an Actors' Talk, and present the Nordic premiere of Niclas Larsson's Mother, Couch, in which McGregor plays the leading role. The festival will also feature a retrospective showcasing some of McGregor's most notable films.

With roles in films such as Trainspotting, Moulin Rouge!, and Star Wars, he established himself early on as one of his generation's most versatile film stars. Ewan McGregor is now set to serve as the executive producer and play the lead in Paramount+ & Showtime’s A Gentleman in Moscow. With around 75 film roles under his belt, McGregor is one of the most acclaimed actors in contemporary cinema. 

Ewan McGregor will receive the Honorary Award in conjunction with a screening of Trainspotting at Stora Teatern. The screening will be followed by an on-stage conversation with Ewan McGregor.

Nordic Honorary Dragon Award: Sidse Babett Knudsen

She has revolutionized Danish comedy, been knighted in Denmark and France, and established herself as a reference point in the international political debate. Sidse Babett Knudsen will receive the Nordic Honorary Dragon Award in conjunction with the screening of Club Zero on January 30. The screening is followed by an Actors' Talk.

International Competition

The International Competition includes 18 international films, and the winner will be selected by the festival audience. Dragon Award Best International Film is awarded to the winner along with SEK 50,000 (approx. 4 500 €) and is presented by the newspaper Göteborgs-Posten. 

This year's nominees: 
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).

In Conversation:
Thierry Frémaux and Ruben Östlund 

It is our pleasure to welcome Thierry Frémaux, the General Delegate of the Festival de Cannes and General Director of Institut Lumière, to Göteborg for an engaging on-stage conversation. Together with director Ruben Östlund, Göteborg Film Festival’s Honorary President and two-time Palme d'Or recipient, they will delve into the exclusive talk about the current cinematic landscape and film festivals, exploring their past, present, and future. 

The conversation will be moderated by Göteborg Film Festival’s Artistic Director, Jonas Holmberg, scheduled for Nordic Film Market on Wednesday, January 31 at Hotel Draken. The primary access to the conversation is with a Nordic Film Market accreditation.

Handling the Undead to open and Meeting in Rome to close Göteborg Film Festival

On January 26, the 47th edition of the Göteborg Film Festival will open with the European premiere of Thea Hvistendahl’s Handling the Undead, an adaptation of John Ajvide Lindqvist’s successful novel. The film competes in the festival’s Nordic Competition, and the opening ceremony takes place in Göteborg and in cinemas across Sweden.

With emotional depth, visual power, and perfect pitch, director Thea Hvistendahl tells the story of three families recently left in mourning after the passing of loved ones. Suddenly, the power grid goes out, and the deceased begins to move. Norwegian stars Renate Reinsve and Anders Danielsen Lie (both acclaimed for The Worst Person in the World) portray complex reunions and interrupted grieving processes alongside, among others, Bahar Pars and Bjørn Sundquist in a chillingly thought-provoking and extraordinary horror drama.

As the festival's closing film, Niclas Bendixen's Meeting in Rome will be shown, about the unlikely couple Gerda and Kristoffer traveling to Rome to celebrate their forty-year wedding anniversary. Bodil Jørgensen, Rolf Lassgård, and Kristian Halken portray a love triangle involving rekindled passion and exposed life secrets with passion, musicality, and quite a bit of grappa, but Meeting in Rome is also a love letter to Rome's film history.

Another Persona

Over the past year, it has become clear that the new AI technology will change the world of cinema. Will the technology enable more efficient workflows and better movies, or will it lead to artists being marginalized and replaced by machines? During the American film industry strikes, screenwriters and actors have protested against how film studios want to use the new technology and minimize compensation and rights. It is a struggle that will likely need to continue and involve filmmakers in other countries.

But what does the AI technology really mean for the art of film? For example, what happens when one face is replaced by another? Who is acting then? These are questions that we need to discuss to understand how filmmakers can relate to the technology. To give new perspectives on these issues, Göteborg Film Festival, in collaboration with SF Studios, Gothenburg Film Studios, and the Ingmar Bergman Foundation, is producing an AI-generated version of Persona where Alma Pöysti plays Liv Ullmann’s character, Elisabet Vogler. The film experiment will be shown exclusively once at the Göteborg Film Festival 2024, and the screening will be followed by a conversation about acting and technology.

TV Drama Vision Jan 30–31, 2024
Nordic Film Market Jan 31 – Feb 2, 2024

47th Göteborg Film Festival Jan 26 – Feb 4, 2024