Nordic & Baltic Oscar Contenders — Screenings & Film Talks at Scandinavia House

This winter at Scandinavia House, The Nordic & Baltic Oscar Contenders has returned with screenings and director talks of films selected for Best International Feature Film and other prizes at the 97th Academy Awards. The series kicked off with Latvian contender Flow and Estonian contender 8 Views of Lake Biwa in the NY Baltic Film Festival, and continued on November 11 with The Remarkable Life of Ibelin, a contender for Best Feature Documentary about young Norwegian gamer Mats Steen, with director Benjamin Ree. Other November screenings included the Icelandic contender Touch, which screened November 19 with a virtual talk by director Baltasar Kormákur, and the bitingly humorous Finnish contender Family Time, which screened Thursday, November 21 by a film talk and Q&A with director Tia Kouvo. The series will continue in December with the Danish Oscar Contender The Girl with the Needle, screening on December 4 with a film talk by director Magnus von Horn. Inspired by one of Denmark’s most infamous serial killer cases, Dagmar Overbye, the film follows a young seamstress striving to climb out of poverty in post-WWI Copenhagen, where a solution to her problems may come at a terrible cost… Chilling and timely, and “invested with a supremely eerie folkloric edge” (The Telegraph). On Thursday, December 5, the Norwegian Oscar Contender Armand explores a tense situation that develops at an elementary school after boundaries have been crossed between two six-year-olds; starring The Worst Person in the World actress Renate Reinsve, it has been acclaimed as “resonant and haunting,” and screens with a film talk with Director Halfdan Ullmann Tøndel. And on Saturday, December 7, see Sweden’s Oscar Contender — and its highest-grossing documentary so far — The Last Journey. In an attempt to help his retired father regain his zest for life, filmmaker Filip Hammar and close friend Fredrik Wikingsson take him on a surprise road trip to France, retracing steps they made in the summer during Flip’s childhood. Over the course of their travels, a different metamorphosis takes place — one that brings Filip to terms with the inevitability of aging, in a film described as “life affirming…humorous and heartbreaking” (Variety). Filip Hammar will be present for a film talk and Q&A, followed by a reception in Björk Cafe & Bistro. The series will continue, with a program of Short Films also screening the first week of December; more information will be released soon. See all upcoming screenings and film talks here.