Lübeck, Oct. 19, 2015. - The films for children and young people in the programme of the Nordic Film Days will once again this year present a palette of exciting and impressive productions for young audiences. Young Baltic filmmakers, absorbing stories and strong female characters are all waiting to be discovered from November 4 to 8 in Lübeck. The films will be accompanied by invited guests who are eager to enter into a dialogue with audiences. The youngest NFL visitors can look forward to watching exciting adventure films from Estonia, Finland and Norway, a family comedy from Denmark, as well as the latest instalment in fun with Iceland’s Sveppi and Gói (“The Biggest Rescue”). In the “Secret Society of Souptown” four bright children have to summon up all their skills to save their hometown Tartu from ruin. “The Island of Secrets" is in Greece, where the children of a Finnish blended family need to learn to bond to stop unscrupulous criminals, and to save a friend. The three Norwegian siblings in “Operation Arctic” also land on an island, but an uninhabited one in the Arctic Ocean, where they must battle icy snowstorms and hungry polar bears, and overcome their fears to survive.
Strong female characters are especially in the spotlight in this year’s films for young people. Hilde, star of the girl’s choir, and Henriette, who was born to be a rock star, meet each other in “Dryads – Girls Don’t Cry” and the three young outsiders in “Girls Lost” find a magical way to assume boy's bodies, which leads to a wealth of discovery about their own sexual identity. Young adults deal with the temptations and challenges of freedom in the German-Swedish production “Young Sophie Bell” and the Finnish feature “Other Girls”.
Subjects like bullying and emotional violence are tackled in the drama “Flocking” when an entire village turns on a 15-year-old girl who accuses a classmate of rape, triggering a wave of harassment directed at her. "Bridgend” also portrays young people dealing with loneliness and despair, in a story about the town of that name in Wales, which gained notoriety as “suicide village”, where a destructive youth culture soon draws new arrival Sara under its spell.
Young directors from the Baltic States are particularly well represented this year, with films such as Estonia’s "Zero Point” (dir: Mihkel Ulk), in which Johannes, trapped between an elite prep school and his mentally ill mother, searches for something that will give him a foothold. “Modris” on the other hand, can’t escape his gambling addiction and finds himself on a downward slide that ends in a Riga prison. The film, directed by Juris Kursietis, is Latvia’s submission for the 2016 foreign-language Oscar. Lithuania’s entry into the Oscar race is “Summer of Sangaile" by Alanté Kavaité, a heartening story about a young girl's self-discovery.
The Nordic Film Days Lübeck is once again organising numerous youth projects to go along with the film programme: First and foremost is “Young Nordic Filmmakers”: during festival week, 16 young people between the ages of 17 and 21 from Germany, Denmark, Finland and Norway will develop and shoot short documentary films together. They will learn the necessary basics in workshops. Then they will make short documentaries in teams of four, gaining valuable professional and inter-cultural experience. In addition to the workshops, filmmakers whose work is screening in the festival will be available for questions, feedback and interviews, and as mentors. The resulting films will be screened on Sunday, November 8th at 12:00 at CineStar 1. Admittance is free.
Another group of ten young people will be out and about as “young festival bloggers”. They will garner journalistic experience, interview guests and write film reviews, which will be published both in our partner newspaper, the Lübecker Nachrichten, and on the festival’s homepage.
Once again this year, the NFL is pleased to have a children's jury, four children between the ages of 11 and 12 who will screen all the festival’s children's films and choose their favourite. The children’s jury prize is endowed with € 5,000, donated by the Radisson Blu Senator Hotel. The jury will present the prize during as part of the Film Prize gala on November 7, 2015 at Theater Lübeck.
The full programme of the Children’s and Youth section, as well as the rest of the NFL programme, will be available online beginning October 24th. Advance ticket sales begin at 3 pm on October 31st. Additional information is available at www.filmtage.luebeck.de, facebook.com/nordicfilmdays and twitter.com/nordicfilmdays.
Press contact:
Silke Lehmann
Niko Körner
Antonia Huckle
Nordic Film Days Lübeck
Press and publicity department
Schildstr. 12, 23539 Lübeck
Tel: 0451 – 122 1455
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