- Festival
- Special event
Luc Dardenne presents his pick of Nordic short films, with a string quartet performing anoriginal score by David Achenberg live beneath the big screen.
Nordic short films with a live string quartet! Filmmaker Luc Dardenne has picked his favouritesfor us from a selection of films from Iceland, Finland, Sweden and Estonia.
The vulnerability of young people auditioning for drama school in Signals (Rúnar Ingi Einarsson,Iceland, 2024), the unlikely pairing of nuclear fears and Eurovision in Helsinki’s 1980s nightlife inEqual Dust (Jani Peltonen, Finland, 2025), and the threat of forced marriage in The Weight of Light (Anna Hints, Estonia, 2024) share the bill with Victor Sjöström’s Swedish filmTrädgårdsmästaren (The Gardener).
The latter holds a unique place in Swedish cinema history. Made in 1912, it is, in Luc Dardenne’swords, “full of invention, shifts in rhythm and intense imagery, offering a critique of socialrelations and, above all, the position of women”. Its subject, a young girl sexually assaulted byher stepfather, was deemed too scandalous by the Swedish censors, and the film neverreceived a premiere in its home country. All copies were thought lost until one surfaced at theUS Library of Congress in 1979.
For this special screening, composer David Achenberg has written an original score for stringquartet, performed live to follow every twist and turn of the film.
Program :
SIGNALS
Rúnar Ingi Einarsson, IS, 2024, 14′, VO IS ST EN
THE WEIGHT OF LIGHT
Anna Hints, EE, 2024, 19′, VO ST EN
EQUAL DUST
Jani Peltonen, FI, 2025, 14′, NO DIAL
TRÄDGÅRDSMÄSTAREN
Victor Sjöström, SE, 1912, 34′, NO DIAL
Performers: Bowmore Quartet
Pieter Jansen: Violin
Veronique De Raedemaeker: Violin
Tony Nys: Viola
Francis Mourey: Cello
