Nordisk Panorama Wraps Up the 2015 Edition
Nordisk Panorama – Nordic Short & Doc Film Festival’s 26th edition 18-23 September gathered over 850 independent filmmakers and decision-makers from 30 countries. They had all come to Malmö, Sweden to enjoy 6 days of films, seminars, sessions, market, forum, meetings, networking – and good Nordic fun.
With the festival located in Malmö for the third consecutive year and people in the region getting to know us better, we would like to thank all those who took the time to enjoy our extensive programme of films, sessions and events.
Before the festival we had the optimistic goal to increase our audience with at least 20% from last year. We are therefore very proud to announce that we exceeded our own expectations and had 25% more audience attendance.
Nordisk Panorama 2015 was full of moments to remember. Check out the pictures from Nordisk Panorama 2015 on Facebook, watch interviews with filmmakers through our festival TV and get the festival vibe from this clip.
Lots of Screenings and Events
42 films competed for the three prizes Best Nordic Documentary, Best Nordic Short Film and Best New Nordic Voice. For the second year we also had the Audience Award sponsored by the City of Malmö. Of the 42 films in competition the award winning Danish documentary The Look of Silence by Joshua Oppenheimer won the audience’s hearts and votes. Check our website to see all award winners and films in competition.
More than one hundred films were screened all over town, in cinemas, at the art museum, the City Library and even at Malmö Airport leaving the audience with many magical moments not least because of the exciting Q&A’s with the film directors.
At the recently opened Cinema Panora, we created a new festival hangout space which also housed the popular How We Did It?! and Artist Talk sessions, where film directors and artists shared their experiences and methods in filmmaking and storytelling.
Nordisk Panorama Festival kicked off with a Transmedia Meet-up with the headliners multimedia artist Oscar Raby and artist and activist Peter Sunde and a 48 hour Hackathon prototyping VR experiences and exploring the future of storytelling.
In a special collaboration with BoostHbg, we presented “The Body Swap Experience” where the audience through virtual reality could visit someone else‘s body as if it was their own.
Iceland in Focus
With Iceland in focus this year several programme activities were boiling as geysers with talent, creativity and entrepreneurship, ranging from the fearless ‘Reykjavíkurdætur’ (‘Daughters of Reykjavik’) rapping at our opening party to Johann Jóhannssons’s Masterclass ‘Crossing Borders’ with his uncomplicated approach to composing music for films as well as a great variety of Icelandic short and docs in the Icelandic Retrospective, Art films at Malmö Konsthall and the truly interactive musical learning of Biophilia developed by Björk.
Inspiring Seminars & Great Parties
It was our honour to present the well known Danish director and screenwriter Christoffer Boe in a dinner conversation with Ísold Uggadóttir, an award-winning Icelandic filmmaker. We also invited the audience into the home of Icelandic Malmö resident Gudrun Hauksdottir for a home screening of Sigur Rós: Heima.
With the short film programme “Beyond The Bechdel” this year’s festival wanted to frame the role of women in filmmaking. This was further staged with the event A-rated organized by WIFT, staring the Swedish icon feminist Gudrun Schyman, resulting in hundreds of people cuing up in front of the venue.
There was lots of mingle and networking taking place at the NP Happy Hour gathering hundreds of participants each night. The NP Festival Club kept everyone up late with a dynamic mix of local and Icelandic artists like the electronic band Samaris.
Forum & Market
24 projects pitched at Nordisk Panorama Forum to close to 70 decision-makers. A record of more than 510 pre-booked meetings took place over two days. We are looking forward to following the projects, seeing the results and hopefully welcoming back the finished films.
This year we introduced the NP Forum Outreach Clinic where forum participants could have a consultation with campaign strategist Ben Kempas about how to organise their outreach campaigns, build communities and take control of distribution. This new initiative was well received as the participants kept Ben occupied throughout the forum.
Again this year Nordisk Panorama Market was very busy guiding distributors, sales agents and festival programmers to discover the new Nordic films they are on the look out for.
Thanks for a Great Festival & See You in 2016
It was a great pleasure seeing the festival unfolding with all our Nordic film professionals, international guests and an ever-growing local audience moving effortless between the festival venues in the film cluster area of Malmö.
We kicked of the festival with a spectacular opening at Malmö Live with more than 700 participants. Five days and thousands of satisfied guests later after engaging in a unique mixture of true Nordic business and pleasure, we could announce the winners of the competitions at an elegant award show overlooking the harbour of Malmö.
The true winners of Nordisk Panorama are all those people who left the festival feeling enriched by an inspiring experience and the professionals for whom this year’s Nordisk Panorama was a stepping stone to better business and creativity.
Thank you financers, partners, filmmakers, artists and volunteers for making all of this happen. We’re looking forward to welcoming you all back to Malmö next year 16-21 September to a festival with special focus on Norway.