Norden — Nordic Cinema
The cinema of silence, consequence, and the things left unsaid.
Touch · Iceland 2023 · Baltasar Kormákur · 6 Edda Award Nominations ⭐⭐⭐⭐½
An elderly man in Iceland retraces a love story from fifty years ago — a Japanese woman he met in London, lost, and never stopped thinking about. The film moves between past and present with rare delicacy — not a reunion so much as a reckoning with time itself. Deeply felt, quietly beautiful, and honest about what we carry and what we let go.
And Breathe Normally · Iceland — Andið Eðlilega 2018 · Ísold Uggadóttir · Directing Award · Sundance · 9 Edda Awards · Won Best Film ⭐⭐⭐⭐½
A struggling Icelandic single mother working as a border guard at Keflavík airport flags the passport of an asylum seeker from Guinea-Bissau. What begins as a bureaucratic act becomes something more human and more complicated. About two women trapped by systems — one by poverty, one by bureaucracy — and the unexpected solidarity that forms between them in the space those systems leave. Shot with the spare naturalism of the Dardenne brothers.
Woman at War · Iceland — Kona fer í stríð 2018 · Benedikt Erlingsson · Un Certain Regard · Cannes · 10 Edda Awards · Won Best Film ⭐⭐⭐⭐½
A middle-aged Icelandic woman wages a one-person war against the aluminum industry — sabotaging power lines, evading helicopters, living a double life. Playful, political, and completely committed to the idea that having a right on your side is enough to keep going. The on-screen band playing the score is one of the most inspired formal choices in recent Nordic cinema. Then the adoption letter arrives and everything gets more complicated.
Virgin Mountain · Iceland — Fúsi 2015 · Dagur Kári · Best Film · Tribeca · 7 Edda Awards · Won Best Film ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Fúsi is 43, lives with his mother, works at the airport, and has built a life of quiet routine that keeps the world at a safe distance. When an unexpected connection finds him through a dance class, something begins to open. The film never condescends to its protagonist or asks you to pity him. One of Iceland’s most quietly devastating films, and one of the kindest films I have seen about loneliness.
Volcano · Iceland — Eldfjall 2011 · Rúnar Rúnarsson · 5 Edda Awards ⭐⭐⭐⭐
An elderly Icelandic man who has spent his entire life keeping everyone at arm’s length is forced to care for his wife after a stroke. Minimal dialogue, maximum weight. The film watches him learn, very late, what it means to actually be present for another person. The central performance by Theodór Júlíusson achieves something rare: you see a man changing in real time, without a word of explanation.
Exodus · Sweden 2023 · Abbe Hassan · Göteborg Film Festival · Opening Film ⭐⭐⭐⭐
A people smuggler takes on a twelve-year-old Syrian girl separated from her family somewhere along the route to Sweden. A road movie that refuses both sentimentality and despair — about immigration not as a political issue but as a human one. What it costs, who pays it, and what unexpected grace sometimes appears along the way. Swedish-Syrian director Abbe Hassan’s debut, inspired by his own experience leaving Beirut as a child.
What Will People Say · Norway — Hva vil folk si 2017 · Iram Haq · Amanda Award · Best Film ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Nisha is sixteen and living two lives — the perfect Pakistani daughter at home, a normal Norwegian teenager everywhere else. When her father catches her with a boy, both worlds collapse at once, and she is sent to Pakistan. About the racism of belonging — not the overt kind, but the kind that tells a person they are never quite right in either place they call home. Angry, precise, and deeply empathetic.
Triangle of Sadness · Sweden 2022 · Ruben Östlund · Palme d’Or · Cannes · 6 Guldbagge Awards · Won Best Film ⭐⭐⭐⭐½
A yacht full of billionaires, models, and influencers. A storm. A deserted island where the only person who can feed everyone is the cleaning lady — and watch how fast the people who owned everything reorganize themselves around whoever has the useful skills. Capitalism stripped naked. Funny until it isn’t, then funny again for different reasons.
Charter · Sweden 2020 · Amanda Kernell · 4 Guldbagge Awards · Including Best Director ⭐⭐⭐⭐
A mother in the middle of a custody battle abducts her two children and flies to Tenerife without telling anyone. A film about love that has crossed into something else — obsession, desperation, the inability to let go. Quiet and very unsettling. Kernell never judges her but never lets her off either.
Force Majeure · Sweden — Turist 2014 · Ruben Östlund · Jury Prize · Cannes · 6 Guldbagge Awards · Including Best Film ⭐⭐⭐⭐½
An avalanche approaches. The father grabs his phone and runs. The mother stays and shields the children. When the danger passes, what remains is a question nobody wants to answer — and Östlund doesn’t let it go. Days of denial, negotiation, and humiliation follow. Colder than Triangle of Sadness, and in some ways more devastating.