Welcome

Welcome to Build Strong Industry Bridges!

Our popular event Nordic Talents builds lasting bridges between Nordic generations and countries. In an open and friendly atmosphere, established professionals meet exiting new Nordic voices. The newly graduated get to pitch their projects and the established producers their companies. Every year we are all inspired by one another.

The motivation to collaborate in the Nordics is strong in 2023, a year marked by the sadly continuing war in Ukraine and the rapid changes in our industry. This spring Nordic Talents received a record number of applications. Our pan-Nordic readers studied 73 graduation productions and new project ideas from all over our region, before deciding on the 15 fantastic projects that are pitched in Copenhagen.

The application year was not only strong in numbers. Our pan-Nordic preselection group praised the application quality, the intense stories and important themes in the proposed films, series, documentaries, and hybrid formats. I want to share some comments:

“I’m impressed by the scope and depth in the variety of viewpoints. The projects all in all examine the questions of identity, be it gender, sexuality, class, ethnicity – or all of them.”

“A strong set of applications with distinct red threads across the projects that go deep into human connection, or the lack of it, especially through intimacy, sexuality, or as the “other” in today’s confusing world and doing so through less seen gazes.”

This continuity element of Nordic Talents is important. All schools cannot present graduation films every year. In 2022 a Finnish project won the main prize and Norway presented the biggest number of finalists. In 2023 we will see a big number of Danish projects on stage, closely followed by Swedish ones. In the future we will students graduating in Iceland too thanks to the film BA education at Iceland’s University of the Arts that started last year.

Nordic Talents has been going on for more than 20 years and has all the reason to continue.

A big thank you to all the good forces that make it all happen in 2023: Our award jury, our pre-selection jury, our pitch trainers, all technical and other crew members, the Danish Film School, and of course Tina Wagner who keeps it all so well together and running.

A big welcome to all participants and especially to our pitchers and student delegates.

You make our industry’s future.

Let’s build some strong bridges!

Liselott Forsman

CEO, Nordisk Film & TV Fond