TIFF releases its most popular sidebar

TIFF's largest side bar, Films from the North, highlights stories that represent northern people through short films, documentaries and feature films surrounding The High North. The program reaches both TIFF's local and international audiences through genuine stories from our own region.

World premieres

The upcoming edition of Films from the North (FFN) consists of 43 films, including nine feature films, 29 short films in competition, and an exciting selection of films by young filmmakers and film students. The Tromsø Palm award goes to the best short film in the competition program.

- The quality of the films in this year's edition is impressive. Therefore, we also have an extra-large competition program this year. We have everything from sensational documentaries that will spark debate, to delightful genre films that you just have to sit back and enjoy. There are both gripping and entertaining films in all genres. Ski and mountain enthusiasts also get theirs, says Astrid Aure, new program director of Films from the North.

A total of 18 world premieres will be presented in this sidebar at Tromsø International Film Festival, 16-22 January 2023. In addition, there is a large number of Norwegian premieres. 

Icelandic epic drama opens program

FFN's opening film is the Icelandic A LETTER FROM HELGA by Ása Helga Hjörleifsdóttir (2022). A film which poetically brings us into a forbidden love relationship set in a small rural community in the aftermath of World War II.

- This movie takes your breath away. The passion is scorching, and the landscape descriptions make you feel weather, season and moods as if you were there yourself. This is a magnificent story about the big feelings, and at the same time an intimate portrait of two people, about daring and regretting, and about gender roles and rural communities in change, says Aure.

The film will have its Norwegian premiere at TIFF.

Feelgood portrait of the fisher man

Trude Ottersen's new documentary, BRØDRENE JOHANSEN, will have its world premiere in January. Here we meet five adult brothers who still live at home in the boys' room in a small village in Northern Norway. The film is about the brothers, about life along our coast and working people who make a living as fishermen and on agriculture.

- In Brødrene Johansen, Trude Ottersen paints a good picture of the modern fisher. It's a film about family ties, brotherhood and a constant tug-of-war between belonging and dreams that I think many people can relate to.

Tromsø-based Ottersen won the audience award for the documentary ISHAVSBLOD during TIFF in 2017, together with Gry Elisabeth Mortensen.

A spectrum of genres from indigenous perspectives

This year, FFN offers a representation of different indigenous perspectives through seven films spread across the Films from the North sidebar. The stories are told by filmmakers from Sápmi, Canada, Greenland, Norway, Sweden and Russia.

- Now that I am presenting my first Film from the North program, I am especially pleased that we have received a high number of exciting and varied films signed up from filmmakers from so many indigenous areas in the north. The fact that the films also range from short animations to solid case documentaries, poetic everyday depictions and entertaining science fiction films, means that this is probably the widest film program from northern indigenous peoples we have ever had," says Aure.

Films from the North program

For interviews or questions: 

Sandra Indahl, Head of Communications TIFF sandra@tiff.no / 481 46 419 

Astrid Aure, Program Director Films from the North          astrid@tiff.no / 932 45