Mads Mikkelsen pushes the alcohol limit in Thomas Vinterberg’s irresistible audience favorite about alcohol, masculinity and the desire to live life to the fullest.

According to Norwegian psychiatry professor Finn Skårderud, humans are born with 0.5 per mille too little. If people were constantly under the influence of alcohol, we would not be so bored and bound. In any case, it is the theory that the four teachers start from in the quirky social experiment that is the core of Vinterberg’s (The Party, The Hunt) accurate drama comedy. Equipped with pads and blood alcohol meters, the quartet, and especially the depressed Martin (an incomparable Mads Mikkelsen), must ensure that they are just right full at all times. Of course, not everything goes as planned. The thought-provoking and extremely entertaining Another round is Denmark’s Oscar contribution, and was recently awarded four major prizes by the European Film Academy, including as the best European film of the year.

Enchanting art and forbidden love in a passionate audience favorite that pays homage to the will to live and creativity of the Moomin role’s bohemian creators.

Tove Jansson is one of Finland’s most beloved artists ever. Alma Pöysti portrays her unconventional hunger for life, artistic thinking and passionate love life with infectious spontaneity. In the film’s jazzy Helsinki, Tove Jansson invents the moomin role and begins dramatic love stories with both the left-wing politician Atos (Shanti Roney) and the theater director Vivica (Krista Kosonen). Zaida Bergroth’s captivating depiction of the world – famous artist’s life is a visual and scenographic feast that vibrates with dancing energy and powerful emotional storms. Despite the pandemic, the Oscar contribution Tove has broken audience records in Finnish cinemas, as the most watched Swedish-language film in 40 years.

Ronnie Sandahl revitalizes the sports film in an award-winning and very moving drama that sheds light on the inhuman conditions of the football industry.

Self-sustaining discipline and endless hours of training have made Martin Bengtsson one of Sweden’s most promising football talents. At the age of 17, he was sold as a youth professional to the Italian big club Inter, and his life dream seems to come true. But on the spot in Milan, he is thrown into a football machinery that is characterized by competition and rivalry and where the language confusion further isolates him. Erik Enge delivers a brilliant portrait of the goal-oriented talent, who ends up in an ominous spiral of mental breakdown. Ronnie Sandahl’s (Svenskjävel, GFF 2015) film is based on Martin Bengtsson’s autobiographical “In the shadow of San Siro”.

Crisis fitness influencers seek unadulterated intimacy via the screen in Magnus von Horn’s return after the Golden Beetle Award-winning debut Aftershock.

Sylwia Zajac has hundreds of thousands of followers on Instagram. She is charismatic, energetic and genuinely inspired by helping her audience keep going. “Work with the body you have, not the one you want!” she exclaims in the opening scene’s pumping workout session in a shopping mall. But her happy sweaty facade is cracking, one post at a time. Magdalena Koleśnik makes a magnetic portrait of an equally peppery and depressing online celebrity who struggles with integrity and longing for closeness in increasingly cross-border digital relationships. Sweat is a thought-provoking film that searches for the human in screen society without cues and deepens the discussion of the existential effects of click economy.

Unsuccessful artist hustles herself unabashedly through Oslo’s cultural elite in a drastically humorous depiction of a searching woman in free fall.

The lost artist Gritt fails to finance her magnificent performance. Everyone around her is completely grounded in their artistic ambitions, from her friend with Down Syndrome who will set up her musical madness project, to the women’s collective’s exploration of mythological beings. But the more Gritt repeats the pitch about her epic performance, the more vague it seems to become. She sneaks into a theater and guerrilla production of a show in secret, all the while her life coincides with escalating speed. Feature film debutant Itonje Søimer Guttormsen creates recognition in anyone who has tried to navigate the labyrinths of the cultural sphere or desperately tried to lie out of their shortcomings.

Urban cultural elitism collides with provincial rural life in a drama-comedy where old injustices bubble to the surface and are put in a new light.

Laura, or Irina as she nowadays calls herself, returns to her hometown for her brother’s wedding. For several years now, she has distanced herself from her family in the countryside and established herself as a writer in Copenhagen. She has just published a book about her miserable youth, where she in particular writes about her former bully Catrine – the same woman who will now marry her brother and become part of her family. Debuting director Lisa Jespersen captures the polarization between city and countryside and with humor and brilliant acting the film depicts the difficulty of leaving and freeing oneself from one’s background.

Sofia Kappel makes her film debut as a career-hungry American traveler in Ninja Thyberg’s challenging inside portrayal of the Los Angeles porn industry.

“Business or pleasure?” asks the customs officer when 20-year-old Bella lands in California to make a name for herself in the pornographic film industry. She moves into a collective with other young actresses, who become both friends and competitors in the fascinating but ruthless production apparatus. In explicit and violent sex scenes, the abusive culture of porn is portrayed without blinders, but Pleasure also describes the absurd everydayness of the recordings and the attempts to create genuine relationships beyond the genitals. In a series of acclaimed short films, Ninja Thyberg has examined the power structures of sexuality in a patriarchal visual culture, a theme that is put at the forefront of her complex feature film debut.