Northern lights: A Nordic flick feast awaits
The 2026 Hurtigruten Nordic Film Festival offers exciting new films and a much-loved classic from the great Ingmar Bergman.
Winter is about to get a bit colder with the advent of the 2026 Hurtigruten Nordic Film Festival, which screens through July and August.
Formerly known as the Scandinavian Film Festival, the newly titled festival is programmed by Elysia Zeccola, who also helms the Italian and German film festivals.
Regarding the name change, she says: “We’ve often had films from all the Nordic countries, so it’s just more correct.”
“We thought it was about time we rebrand because we do include films from all of them – Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland and Iceland,” Zeccola says.
In a job that many would envy, Zeccola relishes going to the other side of the world in search of films for the festivals she curates.
“I’m very lucky to go to the Göteborg Film Festival in Sweden at the end of each January and they have the Nordic film market,” she says. “Then I go straight to Berlin in February then on to Cannes in May.
“There’s a vast collection of Nordic films. The quality that comes out of these countries is so high that it makes my job so easy. They’ve all got such a strong history in cinema and such amazing cinematography and landscapes.”
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Family dramas for adult audiences is one of the themes and/or genres that Zeccola says run through several of her festival film choices.
“There are a lot of films with intricate family relationships,” she says. “The opening night film is Árru, about a Sàmi (nomadic Indigenous people of Northern Europe) reindeer herder and her family who are fighting to protect their lands against a proposed mine,” she says. “The lead character contacts her uncle, a lawyer, to ask for help and he comes back to the region and stirs up a lot of long-buried family secrets.”
Debut director Elle Sofe Sara, a Sàmi, has earned acclaim for her first major work, which Zeccola describes as a really powerful drama.
“I thought it was such a beautiful film, where the landscape really is a character of its own. It’s a rare chance to see the Sàmi culture, experience the music and see the reindeer-herding life on the big screen.”
Another family drama is festival centrepiece Fjord, which won the prestigious Palme d’Or at Cannes for the director of the Best Feature Film. Directed by Romanian Cristian Mingiu, the film stars Sebastian Stan and Renata Reinsve as a Romanian Norwegian Christian couple who move into a small Norwegian village, where their parenting comes under suspicion.
“I saw it in Cannes and was not surprised that it went on to win the Palme d’Or,” Zeccola says. “It’s become one of the most acclaimed films this year and is a must-see. It’s such a thought-provoking drama and asks a lot of questions, that are relevant all around the world, about parenting styles and the level of involvement from authorities. It’s a real thinking person’s film.”
Butterfly, another Norwegian family drama, again starring Renata Reinsve, is a special presentation at the festival. A comedy-drama, it screens on various dates and is about two estranged sisters who reunite after their mother’s death.
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There’s also the Danish film, Weightless, which Zeccola says would be interesting to take an older teenager to. “It’s a very beautiful coming-of-age story about a girl who goes to a fitness camp because of her weight, and it’s got a few girls from mixed-up backgrounds there. It’s been very well received around the festival circuit.”
With stage musicals currently closing early or being cancelled in Australia, there might be a glimmer of hope that audiences will see cinema as a viable option. Zeccola agrees.
“That’s the beauty of film festivals,” she says. “Cinema is still one of the most accessible forms of entertainment in a rather affordable way for a family, rather than, say, sporting or live events. It’s an important way to see the world from a different perspective. Take a chance on a foreign film and take a journey to other countries.
“European films are unexpected, too. They’re not as predictable as some of the other territories where you see from the opening scene how it’s going to end. I really like that surprise when I’m watching a film.”
Some other offerings the festival programmer wants to mention include The Fires, an Icelandic thriller featuring some of the spectacular country’s volcanoes, and two Finnish films, comic-drama The Kidnapping of the President, and Tell Everyone, which is set in the 1890s about a young woman fighting to hold on to hope and forbidden love while stuck on an isolated sanatorium island.
In a different vein is a documentary cinephiles will love, Being Bo Widerberg, about a contemporary of renowned Swedish director Ingmar Bergman.
“His name doesn’t really pop off the page,” says Zeccola. “But when you watch the documentary, you think, oh yes, I know those films. He’s really a fascinating figure. We’re also doing a retrospective of Widerberg’s films.” These are Ådalen 31, Raven’s End and Elvira Madigan.
That brings us to the closing night film, Persona, from the legend himself, Bergman, and starring his regular collaborator, Liv Ullmann.
“We love to close with a classic,” Zeccola enthuses. “It gives you an experience to see something masterful from a celebrated filmmaker. With this being the film’s 60th anniversary, it’s a great time to bring it back. Every major psychological drama since owes something to it.”
The 2026 Hurtigruten Nordic Film Festival screens July 22 to August 16 in Brisbane at Palace Barracks and Palace James St; and in Adelaide at Palace Nova Eastern Cinemas and Palace Nova Prospect Cinemas.
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