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Nordic Oscar Contenders

Wednesdays @ 7 pm, January 14 & 21, 2015

Catch an exclusive sneak peek of the films chosen by Iceland and Sweden to compete for the Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Language Film for 2014, by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Life in a Fishbowl/Vonarstræti
January 14

Directed by Baldvin Zophoníasson (Iceland, 2014). Three different tales of three different people, all of whom end up having a lasting effect on one another. Twenty years after a horrible personal tragedy, a middle-aged writer (Þorsteinn Bachmann) still drinks himself into oblivion every day. A young, single mother (Hera Hilmar) moonlights as a prostitute to make ends meet. A former soccer star (Thor Kristjansson) is recruited into the snake pit of international banking and loses touch with his family.
128 min. | In Icelandic with English subtitles.

About the director
Baldvin Zophoníasson was born in Iceland and studied filmmaking in Denmark. He directed the documentary short Fáou Já (2013), and wrote and directed the short film Hotel Earth (2009), and the feature Jitters (2010). Life in a Fishbowl (2014) is his latest film.

Force Majeure/Turist
January 21

Directed by Ruben Östlund (Sweden, 2014). This wickedly funny and precisely observed psychodrama tells the story of a model Swedish family – handsome businessman Tomas (Johannes Kuhnke), his willowy wife Ebba (Lisa Loven Kongsli), and their two blond children – on a family skiing holiday in the French Alps. The sun is shining and the slopes are spectacular but, during lunch at a mountainside restaurant, an avalanche suddenly bears down on the happy diners.

With people fleeing in all directions and his wife and children in a state of panic, Tomas makes a decision that will shake his marriage to its core and leave him struggling to reclaim his role as family patriarch.

Force Majeure questions some of our guarded truths: What if you learn that you are not the person you thought you were?
118 min. | In Swedish, English, and French with English subtitles.

About the director
Ruben Östlund (b.1974, Styrsö) is a director and writer. He has studied graphic design before enrolling at the University of Gothenburg, where he met producer Erik Hemmendorff with whom he later founded Plattform Produktion. An avid skier, Östlund directed three ski films, alluding to his taste for long sequence shots, a taste he structured and developed throughout his film studies and which to this day remains an important trademark in his work. He has become well-known for his accurate portrayal of human social behavior, as well as for his renowned use of Photoshop and other forms of image processing software in his films.

His feature debut The Guitar Mongoloid/Gitarrmongot (2004) won the FIPRESCI Award in 2005. Involuntary/De ofrivilliga premiered at Un Certain Regard in 2008. The film was then distributed in more than 20 countries and shown at numerous festivals, awarding Östlund international recognition. Two years later he won the Golden Bear in Berlin for Incident in a Bank/Händelse vid bank (2010), a short film in which every camera movement was generated in post-production. The premiere of his third feature film Play (2011) was held in Cannes at The Director’s Fortnight, where he was awarded the “Coup de Coeur” Prize; the film was then shown at numerous other festivals where it was awarded additional prizes and distinctions. Amongst others, Play was nominated for the prestigious LUX Prize of the European Parliament and won the Nordic Council Film Prize (2012), the highest film distinction in Scandinavia.

Force Majeure is Östlund’s fourth feature film, which was a critical favorite and won the Jury Prize in Un Certain Regard at the 2014 Cannes Film Festival and is Sweden’s 2014 Official Oscar® Entry for Best Foreign Language Film.

Special thanks to the Icelandic Film Centre and Magnolia Pictures.

Film schedule subject to change; for more information, visit scandinaviahouse.org.











When: Wed., Jan. 14, 2015 - Wed., Jan. 21, 2015 at 7:00 pm - 9:00 pm
Where: Scandinavia House: The Nordic Center in America
58 Park Ave.
212-779-3587
Price: $10 ($7 ASF Members)
Buy tickets/get more info now
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Wednesdays @ 7 pm, January 14 & 21, 2015

Catch an exclusive sneak peek of the films chosen by Iceland and Sweden to compete for the Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Language Film for 2014, by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Life in a Fishbowl/Vonarstræti
January 14

Directed by Baldvin Zophoníasson (Iceland, 2014). Three different tales of three different people, all of whom end up having a lasting effect on one another. Twenty years after a horrible personal tragedy, a middle-aged writer (Þorsteinn Bachmann) still drinks himself into oblivion every day. A young, single mother (Hera Hilmar) moonlights as a prostitute to make ends meet. A former soccer star (Thor Kristjansson) is recruited into the snake pit of international banking and loses touch with his family.
128 min. | In Icelandic with English subtitles.

About the director
Baldvin Zophoníasson was born in Iceland and studied filmmaking in Denmark. He directed the documentary short Fáou Já (2013), and wrote and directed the short film Hotel Earth (2009), and the feature Jitters (2010). Life in a Fishbowl (2014) is his latest film.

Force Majeure/Turist
January 21

Directed by Ruben Östlund (Sweden, 2014). This wickedly funny and precisely observed psychodrama tells the story of a model Swedish family – handsome businessman Tomas (Johannes Kuhnke), his willowy wife Ebba (Lisa Loven Kongsli), and their two blond children – on a family skiing holiday in the French Alps. The sun is shining and the slopes are spectacular but, during lunch at a mountainside restaurant, an avalanche suddenly bears down on the happy diners.

With people fleeing in all directions and his wife and children in a state of panic, Tomas makes a decision that will shake his marriage to its core and leave him struggling to reclaim his role as family patriarch.

Force Majeure questions some of our guarded truths: What if you learn that you are not the person you thought you were?
118 min. | In Swedish, English, and French with English subtitles.

About the director
Ruben Östlund (b.1974, Styrsö) is a director and writer. He has studied graphic design before enrolling at the University of Gothenburg, where he met producer Erik Hemmendorff with whom he later founded Plattform Produktion. An avid skier, Östlund directed three ski films, alluding to his taste for long sequence shots, a taste he structured and developed throughout his film studies and which to this day remains an important trademark in his work. He has become well-known for his accurate portrayal of human social behavior, as well as for his renowned use of Photoshop and other forms of image processing software in his films.

His feature debut The Guitar Mongoloid/Gitarrmongot (2004) won the FIPRESCI Award in 2005. Involuntary/De ofrivilliga premiered at Un Certain Regard in 2008. The film was then distributed in more than 20 countries and shown at numerous festivals, awarding Östlund international recognition. Two years later he won the Golden Bear in Berlin for Incident in a Bank/Händelse vid bank (2010), a short film in which every camera movement was generated in post-production. The premiere of his third feature film Play (2011) was held in Cannes at The Director’s Fortnight, where he was awarded the “Coup de Coeur” Prize; the film was then shown at numerous other festivals where it was awarded additional prizes and distinctions. Amongst others, Play was nominated for the prestigious LUX Prize of the European Parliament and won the Nordic Council Film Prize (2012), the highest film distinction in Scandinavia.

Force Majeure is Östlund’s fourth feature film, which was a critical favorite and won the Jury Prize in Un Certain Regard at the 2014 Cannes Film Festival and is Sweden’s 2014 Official Oscar® Entry for Best Foreign Language Film.

Special thanks to the Icelandic Film Centre and Magnolia Pictures.

Film schedule subject to change; for more information, visit scandinaviahouse.org.

Buy tickets/get more info now