Norsk filminstitutt

 Eight Norwegian documentaries have been selected for the official programme of CPH:DOX – Copenhagen’s International Documentary Film Festival: the largest in North Europe – which will run between 15-25 March.

The Night (Steffan Strandberg) is screened in the Nordic:Dox Award Competition
Norwegian director Steffan Strandberg’s The Night is among the 12 international contenders for the Nordic:Dox Award , while Norwegian director Karen Winther’s  Exit competes for the FACT:AWARD in the programme of films ”between documentary filmmaking and investigative journalism.”

The Norwegian CPH:DOX package includes:

Nordic:Dox Award Competition

The Night (Natta pappa henta oss)

Dir: Steffan Strandberg. Prod: Carsten Aanonsen, for Indie Film

 Strandberg was growing up with an alcoholic mother, and in his film he tells about the night when his father finally came and took him and his younger brother away. Using animation, live-action reconstructions and old Super 8-footage, Strandberg recreates the summer of 1980 as he remembers it, when he was 11 years old.

F:ACT Award Competition

 Exit

Dir: Karen Winther. Prod: Eirin Gjørv, for Sant & Usant

In Exit, the director Karen Winther goes searching  for answers to the question: What was the ‘wake-up call’ – that made her and other violent extremists leave violence and extremism behind? Norwegian director Karen Winther talked to Angela in the US, Manuel and Ingo in Germany, living in hiding due to their pasts; also to Søren, with a left-wing background. and David, a former jihadist, who participated in one of the first Islamist terrorist attacks in France. How can you firmly  believe in an idea and then suddenly change your mind?


Other Norwegian documentaries screened at the festival: 

Recruiting for Jihad (Den norske islamisten)

Dirs: Adel Khan Farooq, Ulrik Imtiaz Rolfsen. Prods: Jonathan Borge Lie, Lars Løge, for Volt Film

 On 4 April, 2017, Norwegian extremist Ubaydullah Hussain,  former leader of the Prophet´s Ummah Islamist Group, was sentenced to nine years in prison for recruiting people to ISIS and organising their participation in the war in Syria. In the film, which was shot during three years before he was arrested, Hussain reveals how his hatred towards the West originated; it follows his everyday life encouraging jihadists in Europe, highlighting the tension between free societies and those who take advantage of their values, while seeking to undermine them 

Golden Dawn Girls

Dir: Håvard Bustnes. Prod: Christian Falch, for UpNorth Film

 “In a disturbing study of the psychology of fascism,” Bustnes portrays the extreme-right Golden Dawn party, the third-largest in Greece, which boasts fascist slogans and triangular swastikas, while training with weapons and fighting for a racially pure Greece. ”Blood, honour, Golden Dawn!” is the mantra of the three women behind the party – a mother, a wife and a daughter – who had to rise in court, when their husbands were imprisoned after the murder of anti-fascist rapper Pavlos Fyssas.

Letters 

Dirs: Marte Vold, Jero Yun. Prod: Maria Ekerhovd for Mer Film

 A cinematic exchange of letters between two filmmakers – Norway’s Vold and Korea’s Yun - who let each other into their everyday lives and their existential worries on opposite ends of the planet. Motherhood is one of the themes they discuss – Vold is lovingly looking after her  children in Norway, and they are both confronted with the loss of their own mothers. The distance between Oslo and Seoul - and between gender and culture – is less than you think, they observe.

For Kids and Youth Audiences

Mammas hår (Mum’s Hair)

Dir: Maja Arnekleiv. Prod:  Maja Arnekleiv for Troll Film.

When Maja was 16 years old, her mother got cancer; neither she nor her three younger siblings knew what would happen, except that their mother would lose all her hair and look quite different. Maja wanted to collect the good memories, so she started taking protographs of her – after 18 months she had more than 3,000, and 730 were used in the animated – and award-winning - documentary.

Kayayo – The Living Shopping Baskets (Kayayo)

Dir: Mari Bakke Riise. Prod: Jørgen Lorentzen, for Integral Film

Eight-year-old Bamunu has not seen her family for two years – she has been sent from their little village in northern Ghana to the capital of Accra, where she works as a kayayo (carrier), with another 10,000 girls: they make a few dimes in the markets, walking around with big bowls on their heads, so the shopping ladies have something to put their heavy goods in.

 Falling Forward

Dir: Øystein Frøyland. Prod: Guro Sollie Hansebakken for Puffin Film.

Who wouldn't want to be friends with Maher? The 20-year-old Syrian refugee has made a new home for himself in the small Norwegian town of Løkken - he speaks Norwegian, goes to school, and even plays the trumpet in the local orhestra. Maher dreams of one day returning to Syria as an educated pilot, and a born optimist, he also knows how to fall – make sure you are falling forward.