Göteborg’s New Artistic Director on Her Programming Jigsaw

After a decade under the helm of Jonas Holmberg, the 48^th Göteborg Film festival will inaugurate a new era under the reign of artistic director Pia Lundberg. Big names expected between Jan 24-Feb. 2 take in Julie Delpy, Thomas Vinterberg, Mohammad Rasoulof, Joshua Oppenheimer, Thomas Alfredson and Trine Dyrholm. 

In this exclusive interview, the former head of international at the Swedish Film Institute and Cultural Attaché at the Swedish Embassy in London opens up about the challenges of programming the biggest film festival in the Nordics.

This is your first gig as artistic director. What do you feel you are bringing to the festival, with your unique experience, background and competence?

Pia Lundberg: My predecessor Jonas Holmberg who worked a decade for the festival, was hugely experienced so I have big shoes to fill. But I believe that what I bring is a deep understanding of festivals through my own 10-year tenure as head of international for the Swedish Film Institute. Then, I have a large network in the industry and an experience from different cultural fields, especially from my years in London as Cultural Attaché. Working across opera, theatre, film, music was very inspiring and that broadened my knowledge of various art forms. Then I have a journalistic background which is a big help across all organisations. Jonas shared this with me.

Jonas Holmberg said Göteborg holds a particular spot in the Nordic film landscape. Do you agree?

Absolutely. If anyone has to attend one film festival in the Nordics in the calendar year, then Göteborg is the place to be! From an international perspective, you can get an overview of what’s happening in the Nordic film and TV industry and where to discover exciting new voices. No other festival in the region offers such a comprehensive overview of Nordic films. Then we have a very strong and loyal local audience, accounting for the 270,000-plus ticket sales in cinemas and online. That’s quite a mind-blowing figure. The opening film is also available in more than 40 cinemas across Sweden and eight festival titles reach out to Swedish cinemagoers outside Göteborg.

How was your first Göteborg programming experience? How many films did you and your team watch to arrive to your final number and what challenges did you meet?

It was a true jigsaw. Together with our 15 or so programmers and members of our programming committee, we’ve screened around 3,000 films to end up with our curated slate of 270 films from 83 countries, to be screened in 21 cinema theaters in Göteborg and online. It’s been stressful but also a true pleasure and honor to be part of that process.

Regarding challenges, one of the biggest problems we faced was the change of dates of both Sundance and Rotterdam, while we had to stick with our original dates for different reasons. Usually Sundance is just before Göteborg, which works smoothly as we can inherit some of their titles, but they delayed their event, very much because of the way the U.S. Martin Luther King holiday falls this year. Then we’re usually running parallel to Rotterdam, but they will kick-start one week after us this year. Therefore, the competition for titles was harder than ever. Luckily, we have friendly relationships with both festivals and coordinated our programming efforts. Sharing Nordic films with them has always been a very attractive combination.

You have as many as 25 world premieres. Is this an exceptional number?

It’s a bit more than in the past few years where we had under 20 world premieres, but before COVID-19 we were at the same level.

What about gender balance? What’s the share of films helmed by women?

I’m not fully satisfied as we have around 44% of female directors. The level has been going down in recent years which is unfortunate considering our efforts and aspiration to reach gender parity. On the international side, the gap was even higher with approximately 75/25 male versus female directors among the films we saw. On the Nordic side we’re at around 47.5% for the festival films. We’re also in a situation in Sweden where fewer films are being made and public coin administered by the Swedish Film Institute has gone down. Quite a few Swedish indie films still get financed, but those are more often directed by men.

Will this topic be on the agenda of your annual Film Policy Summit in Gothenburg?

Our film policy days on Jan. 24-26 will dig deep into some of the most urgent issues affecting Swedish film. I’m actually part of a group of experts – alongside Ruben Östlund and Film i Väst’s Tomas Eskilsson, for instance – set up by the Swedish Culture Minister, as part of the government’s current inquiry into how to transform national film policy. Results of the research paper will be published late February.

The under-financing of Swedish film – with funding half the size of the production budget in Denmark and three times less than in Norway – has been an issue for quite some time. Last fall, the Swedish Film Institute had to sack 20 people as part of cost-cutting measures. One endemic problem which we’ve looked into is the low national market share of Swedish films compared to Denmark and Norway [17% in 2023 versus 25% and 27% respectively].

Going back to programming, some festivals have experienced pressures from political groups or individuals over ongoing conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza. Was this in the back of your mind?

We didn’t feel any political pressure but how to showcase conflicts and to give a voice to filmmakers against authoritarian regimes was very much at the forefront of our mind, especially when we designed our program focus about disobedience and civil resistance. We’re living complex times, with wars, climate change, democracy decreasing. In the Nordics, we see young people being disengaged in major political and social matters. This is why we felt that disobedience was a perfect theme to highlight today’s challenges facing our democracies. We wanted to give some hope, and to point out that one single person saying ‘no’ can make a difference. We’ve tried to showcase the topic of disobedience from different perspectives with our 14 features and six shorts in the Disobedience program. We’re incredibly pleased, for instance, to welcome Iranian filmmaker Mohammad Rasoulof who will give a talk Jan. 30, following the screening of “The Seed of the Sacred Fig.”

Would you agree that being disobedient or defiant is part of Göteborg’s DNA? Göteborg has created in the last few years innovative initiatives to shake people’s views on the big screen experience-with a single screening on an island during COVID, Ruben Östlund’s directing the audience or an AI version of Ingmar Bergman’s “Persona”….

This is a fun question actually, and yes, this is in the festival’s DNA and now we’re focusing on this topic in a more concentrated way. This year again, we will have surprise events during the festival where we will give live examples of disobedience. Watch out for the festival opening where more will be revealed!

Eirik Svensson’s drama “Safe House” will kick-start the festival and Mads Hedegaard’s prehistoric epic “Stranger” is the closing film. Why this choice?

It’s always difficult to find a suitable opening film. It should be Nordic, of outstanding quality, preferably a world premiere, a film available for screening in cinemas and online. I’m very happy with “Safe House,” based on the real-life story of Lindis Hurum, general director of Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières in Norway. It’s a gripping drama asking moral questions and pointing at difficult decision-making under a lot of pressure. The acting, especially from Norwegian actress Kristine Kujath Thorp, is at its best. As for “Stranger,” it’s another brave and refreshing film from the Nordic region – an exceptional Danish film going back in time to 4,000 BC. The director and his team have even re-created two pre-Indo-European languages. It’s a very ambitious project. 

The Nordic competition is your ‘star’ program. How many films were submitted, and how would you describe this year’s slate? It seems like Denmark dominates with three out of nine selected titles…

We collaborated closely with Nordic institutes and production companies. I think we’ve screened around 70 films throughout the year,  then picked the most outstanding ones. It’s been a very exciting journey and I wish we could have included more of them. You mention Denmark and indeed the country had a very strong film year, together with Norway. Sweden suffered from a lower production volume and lack of high-profile titles. But we’re proud to showcase in this section the world premieres of two promising debuts by female directors. Fanny Ovesen’s “Live a Little” is a beautiful and brave female-driven title about sexual abuse, and Maria Eriksson-Hecht’s “Kevlar Soul”, a social-realist drama, in the Andrea Arnold vein, a genre that is perhaps lacking in Sweden, although “Paradise Burning” was also set in a similar environment.

Nordic documentaries are regularly chart-topping the biggest doc festivals in the world. How does your doc competition slate look like?
I’m very happy about our documentaries vying for a Dragon Award. I’d highlight “Ultras” which dives into the subculture of football ultras in the world, which will screen as a world premiere, and “Mr Nobody Against Putin” which will come straight from Sundance. It’s a unique insight into the Russian war propaganda machine.

In the international competition you have a wide-ranging selection of 18 titles, including the international premieres of the Australian prison drama “Inside” starring Guy Pierce, Canada’s “Measures for a Funeral” and one world premiere from Spain: “Pheasant Island”. Can you comment?

We’re very happy about this programme, where the audience is invited to vote for the best film. “Pheasant Island” was selected by our programmer Camilla Larsson. It’s an exciting thriller by a debut filmmaker-Asier Urbierta which delves into border control and its effects on human beings. It could have been programmed in our Disobedience slot. Spain is thriving creatively. I was invited to San Sebastian with a group of programmers and was super impressed by the production level and quality of the films.

You have another Spanish debut-David Pérez Sañudo’s drama “The Last Romantics” in your Ingmar Bergman competition section dedicated to outstanding first and second features…

Yes, this section is Göteborg’s prime showcase and we’re the only festival in the world able to use his name for a competition. We’re proud to have eight titles from eight different countries, including one international premiere, “Then, the Fog” from Argentina, and two European bows: the South-Korean drama “Land of Morning Calm” and queer Indian drama “Cactus Pears.”

Nordic series have a prime position in your industry sidebar TV Drama Vision. Yet a handful of Swedish series will also get a red-carpet festival treatment including SVT’s “Faithless” and TV4’s “The Congregation” Season 2. Are you planning to expand the festival space for series?

Not really. But some series deserve to be showcased on the big screen, such as last year’s “Painkiller” by Gabriela Pichler. This year we are thrilled to screen in its entirety Tomas Alfredson’s beautiful “Faithless.” “The Congregation” Season 2 is being showcased in collaboration with TV4.

Julie Delpy, Thomas Vinterberg are being honored, and Joshua Oppenheimer, Mohammad Rasoulof, Trine Dyrholm, Dag Johan Haugerud are expected on the red carpet. How difficult is it to attract big names?
There’s obviously a lot of competition. And of course, Göteborg, late January, with a mix of rain, snow and lots of wind might not be a star-pulling destination. But we’ve sent invitations out and the response has been very positive as talent around the world acknowledge our special spot in the global festival calendar. We can’t wait to surprise and entertain our audience.