Lübeck, Oct. 27, 2017. From November 1 to 5, 2017, the 59th Nordic Film Days Lübeck will include the "Specials" films, screening at distinctive locations, as well as a series of select special and side-bar events that turn the festival into a feast for all the senses.
“The Nordic Film Days Lübeck special events combine interesting content with unusual venues in our gorgeous city. We work with first-class curators to put together a spectacular side-bar programme that is well thought-out, in tune with the times, and outstanding in quality”, says Florian Vollmers, Festival Manager, Nordic Film Days Lübeck.
The “Specials” programme this year celebrates the “100 Years of Finland” anniversary on two evenings with a Järvispektaakkeli (lake spectacle) at the Krähenteich swimming pier. Against the picturesque background of belle époque houses, we will have an open-air screening of two Finnish films on a big screen in the centre of the lake. On November 3 at 6:00 pm, the documentary “Tale of a Lake” (Järven Tarina / Der magische See) takes us on a fantastic journey around Finland’s 200,000 above ground and underground lakes, a delight for the entire family. Filmmakers Marko Röhr and Kim Saarniluoto give us breathtaking images on and under the water, linking them to Finnish myths and legends of the lakes. On November 4 at 8:00 pm, the Järvispektaakkeli continues with the film “Lake Bodom” by Taneli Mustonen, the story of a group of friends who decide to camp out at the exact spot by a lake where three teenagers were brutally in their sleep in the 1960s. The perpetrator was never caught – and soon after the friends arrive at the scene of the crime, the horror starts anew. Spine-chilling entertainment is guaranteed! Tickets to the Järvispektaakkeli are € 9.50, reduced price € 7.50.
In honour of Finland’s 100th anniversary, one of the country’s oldest films (1922) was digitally restored; it attracted great international attention at the time of its original release. In Lübeck, that silent masterpiece “Finlandia” (dir: Erkki Karu) can be seen on November 2, 2017 at 8:00 pm in a special screening with live musical accompaniment at Lübeck’s St Catherine’s museum church. The music is a live remix of a piece produced especially for this occasion by František Beer, Sebastian Borleis, and professor Franz Danksagmüller from the Lübeck Academy of Music. Tickets to the concert are € 12.00, reduced € 8.00.
On November 3 at 8:00 pm, also at the museum church of St Catherine, we’ll be presenting another “Special” – the German premiere of the film “November” directed by Rainer Sarnet. Estonia’s submission for the 2018 Oscars is a story deeply anchored in the country’s myths and legends, a story of love and suffering, of farmers, barons, and werewolves, rife with visual creativity rendered in hypnotic black-and-white images. It is a unique experience that is perfectly suited to the halls of the 14th century St Catherine’s Church. And the winner of the INTERFILM Church Prize will also be shown in a church - On November 4 at 10:30 pm, the Nordic Film Days joins the benefactor of the prize, the Protestant-Lutheran church district Lübeck-Lauenburg in welcoming audiences to St Peter’s Church to celebrate the film just named the winner.
Other “Specials” can be seen at the CineStar Filmpalast Stadthalle, including the Icelandic film “I Remember You” by Óskar Thór Axelsson, and “Backstabbing for Beginners” by director Per Fly. In Axelsson’s scary-creepy film (based on the eponymous book by Yrsa Sigurdardóttir), a psychologist is trying to unravel a series of deaths, while three young people in a remote cabin rouse the ghosts of the past. With three wins, Danish director Fly holds the record for most NDR Film Prize wins at the Nordic Film Days Lübeck. His political thriller is based on true events and boasts a celebrity cast including Ben Kingsley and Jacqueline Bisset; the protagonist, Michael, works in Bagdad for the UN’s Oil-for-Food programme. He soon realises that the humanitarian scheme is nothing more than a facade for corruption.
The special events and extensive side-bar programme for the Nordic Film Days range from multi-media installations and exhibitions at a variety of venues, to a book lounge in the Kolosseum cinema with craft beer tastings, a Finnish electro-pop party at "treibsAND", and the 4th Lübeck Film Studies Colloquium.
“D | DK – Photographs on the German-Danish Border”, an exhibition of Karsten Wiesel’s work will be on display at the Kolosseum cinema from November 1 to 5, daily from 10:00 am – 8:00 pm. 8,000 individual pictures documented the path along the border between Germany and Denmark; edited into a video stream, the resulting 12-minute film will be shown as part of the Filmforum section of the Nordic Film Days (“D | DK", part of the short film block “Landscape:Time”). Selected stills can be seen in the exhibition. “Sensations of Places” in Kunstraum K70 at Engelsgrube 70 presents a multi-media installation by Norwegian artist Amalia Fonfara daily from 3:00 pm to 10:00 pm. The preview is on November 1 at 3:00 pm. The exhibition deals with perceptions of reality, and its fusion with imagination, intellect, and physical presence.
The installation “The Diving Bell” in the café of Lübeck’s St Peter’s Church from November 2 to 4, between the hours of 3:00 pm and 8:00 pm, is an immersive journey into the music and film of the three Danish film and media composers Povl Kristian, Birgit Løkke, and Jesper Siberg, who last year provided the soundscape for the NFL's "night bus". There will be live concerts to accompany the exhibition on November 4 at 5:00 and 9:00 pm.
The multi-media presentation “Bloody Lead” at the Lübeck Weltladen (Hüxstrasse 83) runs from November 1 - 3 from 10:00 am to 6:00 pm, and on November 4 from 11:00 am - 7:00 pm. In their reportage, Linná Kviske and Jana Sepehr use Ghana as an example to show how scrap car batteries are re-cycled. There will be a half-time event at the Weltladen on Thursday, November 2 at 7:00 pm.
During the Film Days, the Nordic Book and Beer Lounge will be open in the Kolosseum cinema daily from 10:00 am to 8:00 pm; mounted in cooperation with the Lübeck branch of Hugendubel booksellers and Skanbo, it will be an invitation to browse a wide selection of novels, travel tomes, coffee table books, and cookbooks from Nordic realms. To stave off thirst, the top craft beers from new breweries in Scandinavia and the Baltic will be on offer. After a few beers, Friday night is the time to dance. On November 3, starting at 9:00 pm, the “Nordic Film Days Party - Desert Planet – game pop superstars from Finland” at treibsAND (Willy-Brandt-Allee 9) takes to the floor, with the electro pop band Desert Planet playing us back to the colourful world of the 1980s, video games, and science-fiction movies. Following the live music, “DJ Phable” will take over the turntables; admittance is free all night.
This year for the fourth time, the “Lübeck Film Studies Colloquium” will be held in collaboration with the “Journal of Scandinavian Cinema” and the Retrospective of the Nordic Film Days; the seminar is on November 3 from 9:00 am to 1:00 pm. Lectures in English will be dedicated this year to three main subjects related to Nordic cinema – Migrant Cinema, Archival Practices, and Television Drama. The complete programme of the 4th Lübeck Film Studies Colloquium will be published at filmtage.luebeck.de/projekte/colloquium.
Detailed information on all the special events and side-bars is available under "Events" on the NFL homepage. The complete festival programme has been online since October 21, 2017. Advance ticket sales begin at 3 pm on October 28th, the film festival catalogue will be on sale for 9 euro. Highlights, news, and videos by NFL guests can be found on Facebook / Twitter / Instagram.com/nordicfilmdays. Press photos for festival films are available online at: /de/presse/pressefotos
Press contact:
Silke Lehmann, Luisa Wellhausen, Svenja Knoke, Melissa Harms
Nordic Film Days Lübeck
Press and publicity department
Schildstr. 12, 23539 Lübeck
Tel: + 49 / (0) 451 / 122 1455
presse@filmtage.luebeck.de
www.filmtage.luebeck.de
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