Social distances will be in focus at the 44th Göteborg Film Festival, thematically in the film programme as well as at the festival itself. The festival’s industry platforms will transform into a hybrid format presenting a dynamic online experience alongside a limited on-site event.

This year the festival will scale down the programme selection, presenting physical cinema screenings in accordance to safety measures to be accompanied by a curated digital programme, making the festival accessible to an audience all over Sweden. Read more about the festival’s Focus: Social Distances below.

Jonas Holmberg, Artistic director, Göteborg Film Festival, said: ”Facing the biggest crisis in the history of cinema, we’ve set out to design a film festival viable in the midst of a global pandemic. We want to support filmmakers and the industry by creating an innovative festival that will be safe while remaining a powerful manifestation of the art of cinema during this unprecedented crisis.”

Nordic Film Market, TV Drama Vision, Nostradamus and a selection of the industry activities will transform into a hybrid format, presenting a digital online programme alongside a limited physical high end edition in Göteborg.

Cia Edström, Head of Industry, Göteborg Film Festival, said: “We will present a hybrid model for the years to come as we believe new formats for markets and industry platforms are here stay. As always we will showcase Scandinavian talent with upcoming films, drama series, creative talents and global industry trends, online and on-site.”

The accreditation for online participation will open beginning of December. A limited number of on-site accreditations will be released in early January. The number of on-site accreditations will be determined by the virus restriction measures applied in January. More information will follow.

44th Göteborg Film Festival, January 29 – February 8, 2021
Nordic Film Market, February 4 – 6
TV Drama Vision, February 3 – 4

Focus: Social Distances

This year Göteborg Film Festival will explore stories about social distance in the wake of the global pandemic. The highly anticipated influencer drama Sweat, by Award winning Swedish director Magnus von Horn and Andrea Segre’s Venice docu Molecules are two of the films that to be included in the section. Sweat is also the first title to be announced as part of the Nordic Competition at Göteborg Film Festival 2021.

Covid-19 has had a profound social and psychological impact on the society, us as individuals and on the cinema. We have never been further apart, but at the same time we’ve seen new expressions and forms of creativity and cinematic expressions.

Jonas Holmberg, Artistic Director, Göteborg Film Festival said: ”In Focus: Social Distances, we will partly examine the new genre of cinematic experiments that have emerged because of the limitations of the pandemic, and partly screen films that are not directly connected to the health crisis, but in different ways provide perspectives on the suspicion and solidarity that has shaped us and our communities over the past year.”

Have a look below at the first titles to be included in Focus: Social Distances.
Additional titles will be presented upon the programme release on January 12.

Sweat
Magnus Von Horn
Sweden/Poland

Molecules
Andrea Segre
Italy

Conference
Ivan I. Tverdovskiy
Russia/Estonia/UK/Italy

Time to Pause
Alistair Morrison
UK

Lock Down Cinema
A short film seletion
Ildikó Enyedi, Jia Zhangke, Annemarie Jacir, Denis Coté etc.