Noomi Rapace, James Schamus to Be Honored at Göteborg Film Festival and Industry Confab, Under ‘Truth’ and ‘Transformation’ Headlines
The Göteborg Film Festival, unspooling Jan. 23-Feb 1, has unveiled the first heavyweight names who will bring star power to the leading Nordic film festival and industry event.
Following up on last year’s accolade to Thomas Vinterberg , versatile Swedish actor and producer Noomi Rapace will receive the festival’s coveted Nordic Honorary Dragon Award Jan. 28, to highlight her talent in “captivating audiences around the world with her uncompromising presence and fearless expressive power,” said artistic director Pia Lundberg who added: “Her ability to find and portray what burns, unsettles and moves us cuts straight through the screen.”
Rapace whose career spans over nearly two decades and 50 films and series, will be honored with a retrospective spotlighting three of her most significant features: “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” (2009) by Niels Arden Oplev, which proved her international breakthrough garnering a BAFTA nod, the Swedish drama “Beyond” (2010) by Pernilla August and Icelandic horror “Lamb” (2021) by Valdimar Jóhannsson.
Rapace will also attend alongside helmer Teona Strugar Mitevska the Nordic premiere of the buzzy Venice Horizons title “Mother.” “She was no saint” said the actor about her tour-de-force turn on the Catholic saint Mother Theresa in a recent interview with Variety.
Besides the Rapace retrospective, an initial handful of pics selected for the Göteborg Film Festival’s 49th edition have been unveiled, including the opener “The Quiet Beekeper,” and four titles, illustrating this year’s overarching theme, “Truth”: Kaouther Ben Hania’s “The Voice of Hind Rajab,” Petter Næss’s “No Comment,” Kirill Serebrennikov’s “The Disappearance of Josef Mengele” and Jim Sheridan’s “Re-Creation.”
“We live in a time when the very Idea of truth is being put under pressure. Where the boundaries between fact and fiction often become blurred: in news feeds, on social media, and in political rhetoric. With Focus: Truth, we want to explore how film can both reflect and influence our understanding of reality,” said Lundberg.
The anticipated lineup of the 13 competition strands will be unveiled in the coming weeks, but Göteborg revealed Thursday that U.S. heavy-hitter and former Focus Features CEO James Schamus, will both head the jury of the festival’s Ingmar Bergman International Debut Award and head the industry talks.
James Schamus Industry Confab Star GuestKnown for his outstanding collaborations with Taiwanese helmer Ang Lee – notably on “Brokeback Mountain,” “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon,” and “The Ice Storm” – Schamus. who’s been a mainstay of U.S. indie filmmaking for over three decades, will discuss his creative visions and expansive career as a producer, writer, showrunner, educator, and thinker, as well as his perspective on the current state of the global audiovisual industry.
“It’s a true honour to welcome James Schamus,” Göteborg head of industry Josef Kullengård told Variety. “James is one of those rare industry players that have an excellent understanding of what an appealing story is; he has an amazing creative mind and his voice is essential to contextualise what is happening in the industry today. He is in the heart of everything that’s happening in the U.S. industry right now, and still very active,” underscored Kullengård, referring to Schamus’ current gigs as consulting producer on The Duffer Brother’s supernatural series “The Boroughs” and a steady teaching job at Columbia University’s School of the Arts.
New Look Nordic Film Market
Schamus’ on-stage interview on Jan. 28 will be the cornerstone of the slightly revamped industry days, open to attendees both of the TV Drama Vision (Jan. 27-28) and Nordic Film Market (Jan.28-30) in their first overlapping showcase.
“As part of Nordic Film Market’s new look, we will move the film pitches and talks from the Biopalatset to the Draken industry hub – home to TV Drama Vision – to create a more insightful program and better synergies between the two parts of our industry event,” Kullengård explained. “Traditional filmmaking is the part of the audiovisual industry that needs the most innovation and transformation; we want to encourage this,” he said.
The hot TV Drama Vision, expecting around 700 delegates from more than 30 countries, will in fact fully focus on “One Transformation After Another,” the headline of its 20th edition. “The theme refers to Paul Thomas Anderson’s “One Battle After Another” as we feel we’re in constant battle. In our professional and personal life, we’re trying to adjust to the fast-changing reality,” said Kullengård.
Under the helm of program director Cia Edström, TV Drama Vision will turn on the narratives, formats and business models shaping today’s industry, through inspiring panels with 100-plus speakers and around 50 series in development, production and post-production.
“We will look into tomorrow’s strategies for co-production, pathways and business models, platform-fluid IP development, audience-first approaches, smarter budgeting and sustainable production, the art of writing great stories and much more,” said a statement.
Among guest speakers will be Katharina Eyssen, creator of Netflix’s Emmy-winning show “The Empress.” Eyssen will be part of a 60-plus German delegation attending the Göteborg industry confab for a special Country Focus on Germany.
Watch out this space for details of TV Drama Vision projects, coming up in the next weeks.
