The Robin Menken Reviews

SFFLA (The Scandinavian Film Festival LA with BalticFilmExpo@SFFLA) celebrated its 25th anniversary.

 

Launched by opera singer, arts advocate, teacher & writer James Koenig, SFFLA has shown the Scandinavian (and now Baltic) Oscar submissions alongside emerging Scandinavian talent. Historically SFFLA’s list of guest filmmaker and actors represent the cream of Nordic filmmakers and it's shorts filmmakers graduated to become new leading lights of the region.

 

SFFLA showed Ruben Ostlund’s second feature ”Involuntary” a year before it was Sweden’s Oscar Submission. Ostlund’s films have been Sweden’s Oscar submissions in 2014 (Force Majeure) and 2022 (Triangle of Sadness (winner of Canne’s Palme D’or) his 2017 film The Square also won Canne’s Palme D’or). In 2020, Ostlund received the King's medal in gold for significant efforts in Swedish film.

 

Other filmmakers with long relationships to SFFLA include Thomas Vinterberg, Roy Andersson, Mads Mikkelsen, Tivi and Kim Magnussen, Klaus Haro (with Oscar entries from both Finland and Sweden), Susanne Bier, Bent Hammer, Norwegian Director Erik Poppe, Danish Director Billie August.

 

Nikolaj Arcel ("The Promised Land") and his actors and crew attended in 2013 when "A Royal Affair" was Denmark's Oscar submission, as did the crew and cast of "Kon Tiki", Norway's 2013 Oscar Submission.

 

Danish film producer and actor Kim Magnusson has received seven Academy Awards nominations and two awards, all for short films. Magnusson an AFI Conservatory graduate is credited as a producer in more than 150 films. He was chairman of the Danish Film Academy for 20 years, as well as the Danish Producers Association for 9 years. 

 

in 2012 Finnish American director Renny Harlen attended a screening of "5 Days Of War" and received a Cinema Without Borders award. In 2010, to celebrate Billie Skarsgard’s performance in "Simple Simon", the whole Skarsgaard clan visited .

 

Klaus Härö's film "The Fencer" (2015) was nominated for the Golden Globes as well as Oscar shortlisted in the Best Foreign Film Category. Elina (2003), "Mother of Mine"(2005), and "Letters to Father Jacob" (2009) were selected to represent his native country Finland in the Best Foreign Film Category at the Oscars. Härö's films have won more than 60 prizes at international festivals including the prestigious Ingmar Bergman prize, the winner of which was chosen by Ingmar Bergman himself.

 

This year SFFLA featured an Anniversary re-screening of Härö's sublime "Mother of Mine".

 

My favorite films included two exquisite historical films:

Denmark’s Oscar Submission Lasse Lyskjare’s "Promised Land" starring Mads Mikellsen and Iceland’s Oscar Submission, Hlynur Pálmason’s "Godlund," both beautifully shot films about early Nordic settlements.

 

The parent organization of SFFLA is The American Scandinavian Foundation of Los Angeles. The festival receives support from the Barbro Osher Pro Suecia Foundation, SWEA (Swedish Women’s Educational Association), ELMA (European Languages and Movies in America) as well as assistance from Nordic Consulates and Embassies, Baltic Consulates and Embassies, and national film institutes, as well as individual and corporate donors.

 

The Baltic Film Expo was initiated in 2014, in part to affirm the tie of the Baltic countries to the west, following Putin's threats of Invasions.

 

The WGA Theatre in Beverly Hills has been it's home since it was launched.