As August 2020 saw increasing infection rates, travel restrictions and quarantine rules, the Norwegian International Film Festival in Haugesund resorted to its plan B. Luckily, the team had a good one, adapted for digital solutions and even with a hand-picked physical audience for the national Amanda Awards ceremony (the winners, basically). This year’s edition (running from 21-27 August), the 49^th since it started in 1972, promises a real return to form. Plan A has A-list festival favourites, and myriad audience and industry attendees. Almost business as usual.

(El artículo continúa más abajo - Inf. publicitaria)

Opening with Eskil Vogt’s Cannes spine-chiller The Innocents [+lee también:
crítica
tráiler
entrevista: Eskil Vogt
ficha de la película] and closing with Thomas Daneskov’s Tribeca entry Wild Men [+lee también:
crítica
tráiler
entrevista: Thomas Daneskov
ficha de la película], the programme offers 62 features and 23 short films. Domestic presence is at record strength, with 14 Norwegian features and 15 shorts in the line-up, including six world premieres, among them Paul Tunge’s architecture documentary Mind of Modernism and Stay Home, an ambitious account of the pandemic by Maren Victoria Thingnæs and Marianne Mørk, following a group of children from eight different countries over 11 months. The Danish-Norwegian effort Margrete – Queen of the North [+lee también:
tráiler
entrevista: Charlotte Sieling
ficha de la película], Charlotte Sieling’s much-anticipated biographical feature starring Trine Dyrholm, will also be given a world premiere.

The Nordic Focus section offers an ample array of recent festival fare, such as Juho Kuosmanen’s Cannes Grand Prix winner Compartment No. 6 [+lee también:
crítica
tráiler
entrevista: Juho Kuosmanen
ficha de la película] and Nathalie Álvarez Mesén’s Directors’ Fortnight discovery Clara Sola [+lee también:
crítica
tráiler
entrevista: Nathalie Álvarez Mesén
ficha de la película] as well as Ninja Thyberg’s porn-industry fable Pleasure [+lee también:
crítica
tráiler
entrevista: Ninja Thyberg
ficha de la película], Khadar Ahmed’s The Gravedigger’s Wife [+lee también:
crítica
tráiler
ficha de la película] and Christoffer Boe’s A Taste of Hunger [+lee también:
tráiler
ficha de la película]. Documentary picks include Jonas Poher Rasmussen’s Oscar-mooted Flee [+lee también:
crítica
tráiler
entrevista: Jonas Poher Rasmussen
ficha de la película] and The Most Beautiful Boy in the World [+lee también:
crítica
tráiler
entrevista: Kristina Lindström y Krist…
ficha de la película], Kristina Lindström and Kristian Petri’s tender portrait of Björn “Tadzio” Andrésen, who took the world by storm in Visconti’s Death in Venice in 1971. There will be international favourites aplenty, including titles like Jasmila Žbanić’s Quo Vadis, Aida? [+lee también:
crítica
tráiler
entrevista: Jasmila Žbanić
ficha de la película], Kaouther Ben Hania’s The Man Who Sold His Skin [+lee también:
crítica
tráiler
entrevista: Kaouther Ben Hania
ficha de la película] and Olga [+lee también:
crítica
tráiler
entrevista: Elie Grappe
ficha de la película] by Elie Grappe as well as Julia Ducournau’s red-hot Palme d’Or winner Titane [+lee también:
crítica
tráiler
entrevista: Julia Ducournau, Vincent L…
ficha de la película] as a likely pièce de résistance. A possible national contender for all this excitement may well be A-HA – The Movie [+lee también:
crítica
tráiler
entrevista: Thomas Robsahm
ficha de la película], directed by Thomas Robsahm and Aslaug Holm, which was 12 years in the making. The story of Norway’s greatest 1980s pop sensation, which world-premiered at Tribeca in June, is now, at long last, landing in the motherland, with a Haugesund-hosted national premiere on 23 August.

True to tradition, the festival kicks off with the Amanda Awards on 21 August, held, as always, at the Festiviteten concert hall. Leading this year’s favourites is Yngvild Sve Flikke’s dramedy Ninjababy [+lee también:
crítica
tráiler
entrevista: Kristine Kujath Thorp
entrevista: Yngvild Sve Flikke
ficha de la película], with 11 nominations, followed by Eirik Svensson’s historical World War II drama Betrayed [+lee también:
crítica
tráiler
ficha de la película], with nine nods, and Itonje Søimer Guttormsen’s radical character study Gritt [+lee también:
crítica
tráiler
entrevista: Itonje Søimer Guttormsen
ficha de la película], with eight. The big documentary contender is Benjamin Ree’s The Painter and the Thief [+lee también:
crítica
tráiler
entrevista: Benjamin Ree
ficha de la película], an international favourite and Sundance winner, which has racked up five nominations.

The full programme of the Norwegian International Film Festival in Haugesund can be found here.