Nordic Film Days 2016 in Lübeck

After having experienced the Nordic Film Days in 2014 (read article here) and the opportunities to watch Baltic movies being almost null and very limited for Scandinavian movies, I am glad to visit this beautiful city and nice festival since then. This is then the third edition covered by JoRafCinema. 
You can select in JoRafCinema all the movies seen in NFDL2016 by searching NFDL2016. The same method works for NFDL2014 and NFDL2015. 

 

This Nordic Film Days 2016 edition is unfortunately not the best from the quality of movies but is still very rich and it was again a must-do this year! On top of the diverse programmation including TV-series, retrospectives, documentaries, youth movies, oldies with live music, there was one movie including an entry to the sauna! Of course this was enhanced by a photography exhibition on the sauna in the movie theater Kolosseum. As in the NFDL2015 and due to the current refugee low through Europe, the location Altstadtbad Krähenteich organised a café proposing food and drinks from crisis regions of the world in order to break the barrier between cultures. This is an excellent initiative.

There were also two things that I wanted absolutely to watch: fulldome movie i.e. projection on a dome thus all sides and the ceiling; so-called virtual reality i.e. helm with a screen reacting to the movement of the head in all directions! 
The fulldome was installed in the garden of the location Altstadtbad Krähenteich. It was an inflatable dome using four projectors (three for the sides and one for the ceiling) and being able to get ca 20 viewers. The projection was within one hour and included often 2 movies.
The virtual reality corner was located in the entrance hall of CineStar Stadthalle. There were 3 devices. All the movies were less than 10 minutes. Having glasses is definitely not helping the comfort, but the NFDL team was very kind and helpful.

Fulldome movies watched by JoRafCinema: 

• Uhrwerk Ozean, by Institut für Küstenforschung Helmholtz-Zentrum Geesthacht (Germany), presented by one of the producers, Ralph Heinsohn
• Under Ytan (Unter den Wellen, Below the surface), presented by the Swedish director Melker Becker and the producer Mattias Lindeblad

Virtual Reality movies watched by JoRafCinema: 

• Polar sea, by arte.tv
• Amani, by Terre des Hommes

JoRafCinema enjoying Polar Sea!

I would definitely recommend: 
Es esmu seit, from Latvia, for the great acting in this social drama, 
Hjartasteinn, from Iceland, for the image composition in this drama on homophobia, 
Rosemari, from Norway, for the moving melodrama and the moments of great humour, 
In addition, I would recommend Smådstad, from Sweden, for its interesting construction at the limit of documentary and fiction.

The NDR Film Prize has gone to: Hjartasteinn. 

For next year, I am sure to be there again!And let's hope that the nice festival features like crisis cuisine, fulldome and VR are back again.