Geoffrey Macnab

Ukrainian director Yelizaveta Smith was already at work on her new feature documentary before the Russian invasion of Ukraine in late February. The project has been presented this week to industry delegates in Malmö at the Nordisk Panorama Forum. On the day she speaks to BDE, Smith has only just arrived in Sweden. And, yes, it was a difficult journey.

Scandinavians think they know Astrid Lindgren (1907-2002), She is the beloved children’s author who created Pippi Longstocking. The Swede’s books have been translated all over the world. But The Window In Stockholm, the new project from German director Wilfried Hauke, promises to show Lindgren in an unfamiliar light. He explains more to BDE.

It’s the type of story you expect to find in a Frederick Forsyth novel but it happened for real. Hamid Noury, an Iranian official implicated in the slaughter of thousands of dissidents in the summer of 1988, was lured to the west, apprehended and put on trial for his crimes. Swedish-based Iranian filmmaker Nima Sarvestani discusses his feature doc project with BDE.

Invisible Demons, screening in Nordic Competition, might loosely be described as a symphony of a city, but one suffering severely from many of the ailments associated with climate change. “I have felt the strangulation of a concretised world since I have formed my earliest memories of having been in my home town in Delhi,” the director tells Business Doc Europe.

With over 100 submissions received, the 29th edition of the Nordisk Panorama Forum for the co-financing of new documentaries (running 25-27 September) is looking as robust as in pre-pandemic years. 24 projects have been chosen for public pitching alongside a further 22 'Observer +' projects which will be presented in individual meetings to decision makers.

The Danish director is at Nordisk Panorama 2022 in a dual capacity. She is participating in the Forum with her new project Breaker, about three young professional break-dancers training for the 2024 Olympics, co-directed with Jens Lengerke. Meanwhile, Hopland’s autobiographical Moosa Lane is screening in the Festival’s New Nordic Voices strand.

Ice hockey, perhaps. Ski jumping, yes. Middle and long distance running, certainly (who can forget Paavo Nurmi?). And football had the great Jari Litmanen. But cricket? No. This is not a sport in which the Finns have hitherto displayed any signs of excellence. Nonetheless, Otso Alanko’s new doc promises to do for Finnish batting, bowling and fielding what Cool Runnings once did for tobogganing in Jamaica.

Despite being charming, playful and funny, Gunhild Westhagen Magnor’s film, screening in Best Nordic Documentary Competition, was in a roundabout way inspired by the questions she had as she watched TV footage of Norwegian mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik. “How can a person who once was an innocent little child…end up doing something horrible like that?” the director asks.

There were doubts that the 33rd Nordisk Panorama Film Festival would happen at all. Last year, when the Nordic Council of Ministers decided to cut all its funding, the event was left suddenly in very real jeopardy. However, speaking to BDE on the opening day of this year’s festival (22-27 September), Exec Director Anita Reher hailed the efforts of film institutes across the region to keep the Panorama going.

Rima, the protagonist of Louise Leth’s See Me As I Am, is funny, kind-hearted and relentlessly optimistic. She is also autistic. Leth’s film, screening in The New Nordic Voice competition at the Nordisk Panorama, will therefore surprise anyone expecting a downbeat documentary about isolation and suffering. The filmmaker discusses the work with BDE.