LISTEN AND HEAR DOCUMENTARY FILM PROGRAM FOR "NORTHERN LIGHTS-2020"

The 6th Nordic-Baltic Film Festival "Northern Lights" will be held online from 22 to 29 October. The current program includes only 28 films, including 8 documentaries about politics, strong women, and the relationship between man and nature.

The documentary film program for "Northern Lights-2020" can inspire the audience of the film festival for further challenging movements if not answering pressing issues.

This is what the two bright films are about.

The film "Feminister" was produced by the Swedish director and producer Viktor Nordenskiold, a mentor of B2B DOC, who, by the way, visited Minsk. The film tells the story of Former Swedish foreign Minister Margot Wallström, who gained popularity for her feminist agenda and humanistic opinion on life.

The film "Brussels" reveals the internal management of the European Union. Why is Brussels such an important place? What laws are followed there and what are the relations between all the members of the EU? The film producer Gints Grube, one of the biggest and most successful Latvian producers, once worked on the film "The Chronicles of Melanie", which was on the festival's program in 2018.

A very special Danish film "War Photographer" continues the theme of man as a strong personality. This is a psychological portrait of photographer Jan Grarup, who documented the horrors of the war in Kosovo for 25 years, but who suddenly had to face a new struggle within himself. His photographs have won the World Press Photo contest, as well as the UNICEF Children's photo of the year and many other major photography contests.

The Lithuanian film "Exemplary behavior" by Audrius Mickevicius and Nerijus Milerius raises topical issues for post-Soviet society about the feeling of collective guilt and explores the paradox of exemplary behavior of murderers. The film won the Golden Dove special award at the international documentary film festival in Leipzig.

The documentary feature film "Ridge" (Sweden) produced by Erik Hemmendorff, who also produces films by the well-known to Belarusian audience director Ruben Estlund, received a special award at the CPH:DOX Award. The film is based on the stories of people living in the same neighborhood, which becomes the climax and main character of the film. One of the main roles performed by the famous Polish actresses Agnieszka Podsiadlik and Malgorzata Szumowska. The film also features excellent cinematography by Ita Zbroniec-Zajt, a winner of the Sven Nykvist Cinematography Award at the Göteborg Film Festival.

The world premiere of the Estonian film "Prazdnik" about the phenomenon of beauty contests took place at the White nights film festival in Tallinn, and the film of the same director "Anthill" has already participated in "Northern Lights". "Prazdnik" raises such questions as whether beauty can be the subject of competition and how to understand the phenomenon of beauty contests today. By the way, the film was coproduced by the director of the festival "Northern Lights" Volia Chajkouskaya.

The last two films from the documentary program – the family film "The Arctic camels" and the observational one "The Last autumn" – are the films about the dialogue between man and animals, man and nature.

"The Arctic camels" is a great family movie about a Norwegian family traveling through Mongolia to find a professional animal handler for their camels.

"The Last Autumn" is an Icelandic documentary  from female director Yrsa Roca Fannberg. The film touches on the theme of dying villages and the last inhabitants of such forgotten places, which is also important for Belarus. The film had its world premiere at The Karlovy Vary International Film Festival .

See the schedule of the documentary film program for "Northern Lights-2020" on our website. Especially for fans of documentaries, we have made a separate film package, which can be purchased here.


Main supporters: Nordisk KulturFond (Denmark), Nordic Council of Ministers Office (Denmark). 
Co-organizers: Norwegian Embassy in Kiev, Danish Cultural Institute in Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, Current Time TV, The unitary enterprise Kinovideoprokat of the Minsk City Executive Committee – KinoMinska, Volia Films production company. 
General partners: Finnish Liaison Office in Belarus, Embassy of the Kingdom of Sweden in Belarus, Embassy of Estonia in Belarus, Embassy of Lithuania in Belarus,  Embassy of Latvia in Belarus,  Icelandic Film Centre, Finnish Film Foundation, Estonian Film Institute, Norwegian Film Institute, Swedish Film Institute, Danish Film Institute, Lithuanian Film Centre, National Film Centre of Latvia, B2B DOC - Baltic to Black Sea Documentary Network.
Partners: DoubleTree by Hilton Minsk Hotel, official distributor of Mazda in Belarus, Taxi 5, art-group «Sinie Gory», FirstRental rental house, «Svobody 4» bar, «Zerno» coffee shop, Moonlightroom.by, DataHata.by, Blockbuster.by, Jihlava International Documentary Film Festival.
Media partners: BYCARD, CityDog, mvradio.by, 34mag.net, Belarus 3 and Belarus 24 TV channels, AfishaTUT.by, TheVillage, Kyky.org