The Gothenburg Film Festival is the largest film festival in the Nordics and this year it was held for 10 days between 27 Jan and 05 Feb, 2023. The festival had around 250 films from more than 80 countries in about 700 screenings across various Gothenburg theatres. A hand-picked selection was also premiered through their digital partner, DrakenFilm.se, so that the festival could be experienced remotely; an innovation that came about after COVID.
I have been a regular at the festival since 2017. Having written for various publications as a film critic over the years, it has been a seamless process to apply and get registered as an accredited guest each time. Coming from a country crazy about films, I presumed that the patronage might not be as high here in Sweden. However, I could not be more wrong as there was 60 to 70% occupancy at almost every screening, even during weekdays. But the prime difference is that while it is the young crowd between 20s & 40s who throng film festivals in India, it is the elderly group (50+) who are regulars here at the Gothenburg Film Festival. It has been delightful to have lovely conversations on genres, countries, and actors with fellow film buffs, who are more than twice my age, as we queue up outside the cinemas.
One of the key attractions about the festival here in Gothenburg are the variety of cinema theatres on offer. We have classic single screens like Draken, Bio Roy and Capitol whose wide screens and intricate design make the inanest film seem remarkable on screen. We also have a smaller charming ones like Hagabion & Aftonstjärnan operated by Folkets Bio, offering films that are away from the mainstream. Then we have modern multiplexes like Biograf Göta and Biopalatset who have multiple screens varying in size. No prizes for guessing that the most attractive screens for the festival are the aforementioned single screens although the multiplexes work out better when you want to jump from one screening to another with just a 15-minute gap between screenings.
One of the loveliest feelings about film festivals is when movie buffs manage to spot the thematic and structural similarities across the selected films. A Tunisia film, Under the Fig Trees, a Kurdish film set in Vienna, Sonne, a Swedish film Dogborn and a French period film from the anti-abortion period in 70s, Angry Annie, are varied on the surface yet so similar in conveying the emotion of female emancipation when you unpack the layers. Similarly, the extraordinary acts of ordinary people to overcome racial, judicial & political oppression is shown wonderfully in films such as Metronom from Romania, Kash Kash – Without Feathers We Can’t Live from Lebanon and 1976 from Chile. There were multiple films that focused on environmental issues as well such as Paradise, Burial and the exquisite, Ellos Eatnu – Let the River Flow, which focused on Sámi rights amidst the quest for infrastructural development in Norway. My favourite genres of comedy and family drama were represented widely as well. I was howling with laughter in irreverent & bittersweet films such as Cheese (from Trinidad), Shivamma (from Karnataka in India), The Cake Dynasty (from Denmark), Luxembourg, Luxembourg (from Ukraine), Sick of myself (from Norway), Love and Mathematics (from Mexico), and Driving Mum (from Iceland) which offer excellent culture commentary. I enjoyed the awkwardness and love that family dramas such as One Day All This Will Be Yours, A Letter from Helga, The Eternal Daughter, and Winter Boy had in abundance. To not be unfair by using just a single adjective to express my comprehensive endorsement, I would just like to just state the names of the films that were spectacular in my opinion and not say anything more. My picks of the 46th edition of the festival are The Blue Caftan, Storm, Godland, School under Siege, Subtraction, Joyland, Exodus, Camino, and Eismayer.
Given that my Swedish is still elementary in spite of having lived here for 6 years, it is only during these 10 days that film enthusiasts like me can gorge on a World Cinema buffet from Asia, Europe, Africa & South America with English subtitles as they run with Swedish subtitles during the rest of the year when they have their actual releases. As I look back on this edition where I have managed to catch around 30+ films overall, I am hugely thankful for the organizers & festival programmers for their passion and relentless hard work to bring a variety of films across genres to this part of Sweden.
Column written by Anand Sethuraman.
Follow @AnandTheJamist
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