Norway gets pride of place at Les Arcs film festival

The Festival of European Cinema in Les Arcs in the French Alps is in it’s seventh year. It attracts professionals from near and far, and local people alike.

© Festival de Cinéma Européen des Arcs

Apart from giving out prizes, the European Film Festival kicks off the winter visitor season in an Alpine resort. Film fans can combine their screening-time or business meetings and workshops with a quick glide down the slopes at between 1,600 and 3,200 metres.

Up the mountain, not far from the world famous Mont Blanc peak at more than 4,000 metres, the Festival has a competition with awards, most of which are premières in France. It also organises events like an interactive village to explore links between cinema and new technologies, and a film drive-in.

On the strictly film side, the festival chooses a different country each year for a focus on their home-grown features. This year it’s Norway.

It’s the first time that Norwegian film makers have been given such a special place in any French movie festival, except for the Clermont-Ferrand short film festival.

In the Norwegian focus at Les Arcs, which seems particularly apt in this rugged setting, most of the films were made after 2000, apart from a classic of Norwegian film history, The Hunt, of 1959 by Erik Løchen and Insomnia made in 1997 by Erik Skjoldbjaerg.
Stine Helgeland is with the Norwegian Film Institute.

She says Norwegian films are travelling more because "there are more films and they are getting better!" She adds that, "we are hearing from outside that there’s a big pool of talent in our country. Norwegian film-makers and producers are actively seeking co-producers."

She refers to Joachim Trier, a director who has brought Norway international film notoriety. Oslo, 31st August made in 2011 attracted international attention in ‘Cannes Un’ certain regard section.

Louder than Bombs or Back Home, screened in competition for the Golden Palm in Cannes this year with French star Isabelle Huppert and US hero Jesse Eisenberg.

Norway’s is one of the latest European cinema industries to start branching out Helgeland says "we have also set up a government-sponsored fund to co-produce films from developing countries, one of which was Lamb, by the Ethiopian director Yared Zeleke whose feature debut premièred at Cannes in 2015.