Films from the North Features

Iceland, Estonia, Netherlands, 2022
Regi: Ása Helga Hjörleifsdóttir

In a remote fjord in 1940s Iceland, young farmer Bjarni begins a passionate, forbidden affair with his neighbor, the aspiring poet Helga.

Iceland, 2022
Regi: Álfrún Örnólfsdóttir

Three bandmates, Álfrún, Saga, and Hrefna, of The Post Performance Blues Band, are tired of playing to audiences of five and getting paid in beer. Each of them is staring down 40 and exhausting themselves juggling motherhood and artistic pursuits. They decide to give themselves one year to either become pop stars or quit the band for good. Band member and filmmaker Álfrún Örnólfsdóttir puts herself, along with age and gender bias, on stage in this docu-parable about talented but not teenaged women trying to be successful in a youth-obsessed, overnight-success industry. Funny and quirky as it is, this film toys with the boundaries between fiction and reality. But most of all, Band allows gifted artists to perform the resilience and sisterhood that truly exists between life's messes, rejections, and triumphs.

We organize "Beer + Film" in collaboration with our partner Mack. This is so much more than a film screening: First, an hour of beer tasting at the microbrewery before we enter the old brewery cellars, one of the festival's most distinctive screening locations. Here we’ll see the eccentric Icelandic film Band, which fits this concept perfectly!

Norway, 2022
Regi: Trude Ottersen

Johansen Brothers is a film about brotherhood and belongingness. A tender and somewhat alternative coming-of-age story, where country men bloom, both by breaking and maintaining old traditions.

Finland, 2022
Regi: Einari Paakkanen

A heartwarming feel-good film about how karaoke culture has taken hold where you least expected it: In our introverted neighboring country in the cold north.

Denmark, Germany, 2022
Regi: Ivalo Frank

Life on Earth begins and ends with Greenland. Researcher Minik Rosing's landmark discovery of the first life contrasts with the melting ice masses in Ivalo Frank's tribute to her beautiful homeland. Fascinating scientific knowledge about life on Earth, and how it may all come to an end, is juxtaposed with frank, funny, and endearing testimonials from young Greenlanders on what matters most in their lives, making this a thought-provoking yet charming and stunningly shot documentary. 

Finland, Germany, Estonia, Norway, 2022
Regi: Saara Saarela

In a future world stripped of freshwater, Noria becomes the village’s Tea Master after her deceased father. She unexpectedly finds out a secret her father has guarded: There may still be clean water in an irradiated place called the Lost Lands.

Norway, 2022
Regi: Franciska Eliassen

In a small town in Northern Norway, Eira tries to navigate in the shadows of her brilliant and rebellious older sister Vera.

Canada, 2022
Regi: Nyla Innuksuk

A motley gang of girls in the Arctic village of Pangnirtung, Nunavut, must muster courage, horror film knowledge, and proud Inuit hunting traditions to escape bloodthirsty aliens.

Czech Republic, Norway, Slovakia, 2022
Regi: Veronika Lišková

A young anthropologist moves with her husband and three sons to Svalbard, Norway, to study how life in polar regions is changing. After falling in love with her new home, she discovers that more than icebergs and permafrost are vanishing in the Arctic.