{"id":609033,"date":"2026-09-23T08:30:10","date_gmt":"2026-09-23T08:30:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/609033\/"},"modified":"2026-09-23T08:30:10","modified_gmt":"2026-09-23T08:30:10","slug":"nordic-genre-lab-participants-unpack-survival-horror-dystopian-pics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/609033\/","title":{"rendered":"Nordic Genre Lab Participants Unpack Survival, Horror, Dystopian Pics"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tHome to some of the Nordics\u2019 hottest genre talents making waves at top international festivals \u2013 Hanna Bergholm and Ilja Rautsi whose respective \u201cNightborn\u201d and \u201cRed Snow<\/a>\u201d were snagged by Shudder \u2013 Helsinki will no doubt vibrate this week to the beat of some of the most jaw-dropping and entertaining genre projects taking part in the inaugural Nordic Genre Lab<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cAlma,\u201d a Finnish thriller penned by Rautsi, \u201cTrespassers<\/a>,\u201d a Swedish \u201cDeliverance\u201d from \u201cMidsommar\u201d producer Patrik Andersson, and \u201cWhistler,\u201d the first-ever Faroese horror pic, are among eight high-end genre films in development to be showcased at the Helsinki Intl. Film Festival\u2019s industry confab Finnish Film Affair<\/a>, running Sept 23-25.<\/p>\n

\n\tBetween Thursday and Friday, the Nordic Genre Lab titles will be pitched live to 500-plus delegates, attend workshops and receive mentorship from Two Magpies Entertainment\u2019s Claire Willats<\/a>, former Netflix commissioner, and genre expert Todd Brown<\/a>, former XYZ Films head of acquisitions.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tClaire Willats, Todd Brown, Laura Laaksonen <\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCourtesy of Claire Willats, Miguel Bueno, Ville Juurikkala<\/p>\n

\n\tUnder their former Netflix and XYZ gigs, the two senior industry executives collaborated on the original Norwegian version of \u201cThe Trip,\u201d starring Noomi Rapace and Aksel Hennie, and the acquisition of the Netflix hit \u201cThe Platform.\u201d Through her London-based banner Two Magpies Entertainment, Willats is attached to Norwegian \u201cTroll\u201d helmer Roar Uthaug\u2019s upcoming supernatural horror \u201cAmara.\u201d As for Toronto-based Brown, his next ambitious genre bet is Johnnie To\u2019s \u201cTwo Gun Cohen,\u201d which is in early development.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhen approached by head of program Laura Laaksonen to join her in the intensive training venture Nordic Genre Lab, the two international power players signed up, eager to contribute to strengthening the Nordic genre ecosystem and boost the career of emerging genre talent.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cNordic genre remains very strong, in my view,\u201d Todd told Variety. \u201cThe base of talent is deep, and the Nordics in general do a remarkable job of balancing class and critical quality with audience accessibility. You continue to not only see a high volume of projects at global festivals but also see those perform commercially.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tHowever, he argued, \u201cThere still isn\u2019t much in the way of institutional knowledge of genre within funding bodies or a way for these creators to really connect, support and learn from one another in the way they can within the arthouse world.\u201d Which is why he\u2019s hoping with his Nordic Genre Lab colleagues \u201cto help fill that gap.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWillats, co-founder of the event with Laaksonen, added: \u201cI think there is a huge appetite for Nordic genre in the global market. If you look at streamers like Netflix, \u201cTroll\u201d is still the number one film not in the English language. We are hoping the lab can help draw more focus on the wealth of talent in the Nordics, and we hope to repeat this next year and include S\u00e1mi, Icelandic and Greenlandic projects, which are unfortunately not represented this year,\u201d she stated.<\/p>\n

\n\tTogether with Norwegian producer Einar Loftesnes (\u201cThe Tunnel,\u201d \u201cKraken\u201d), Willats and Brown selected the eight titles out of 29 submissions, based on the originality of the project, quality of the team, the writing and stage of development.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe finalists represent \u201can extraordinary range of genre filmmaking, from folk horror rooted in Faroese landscape to dystopian survival thriller in Norway and from animated psychological horror to dark political satire from Finland and more,\u201d said Willats.<\/p>\n

\n\tAmong the participants, J\u00f3n Hammer (\u201cTrom<\/a>\u201d), producer of Gudmund Helmsdal\u2019s \u201cWhistler,\u201d said, \u201cWe set out to make the first Faroese horror feature, and the first in what we hope will become a series of Faroese genre films, so the opportunity to develop \u2018Whistler\u2019 further with the guidance and expertise of such strong mentors is incredibly exciting for us.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tPauliina Piipponen of Finland\u2019s Making Movies, producer of \u201cAlma,\u201d helmed by Pete Riski (\u201cIcebreaker,\u201d \u201dDark Floors\u201d) said, \u201cTaking part in the Nordic Genre Lab comes at a very good moment for the project as we\u2019re now moving further into the creative development and the international financing and production strategy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tJuha Fiilin (\u201cJoy Eternal\u201d), director and producer of the Finnish anime horror \u201cEcho Chamber,\u201d hopes to build on the program to strengthen his film\u2019s market potential, ink Nordic distribution and global sales. \u201cHorror is a perennially attractive genre, but the recent successes of \u2018Obsession\u2019 and \u2018Backrooms\u2019 prove a maturing of the audience. People are ready for high-quality character work in genre films,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

\n\tNordic Genre Lab is backed by Nordisk Kulturfond, the Finnish Film Foundation and Nordisk Film & TV Fond.<\/p>\n

\n\tFull rundown of the Nordic Genre Lab Projects:
\u201cAlma\u201d (Pete Riski, Finland)
Produced by Academy-Award shortlisted and Golden Globe nomination Making Movies (\u201cThe Fencer,\u201d \u201cMy Sailor, My Love\u201d), the ambitious \u20ac4 million ($4.5 million) project is penned by genre wiz Ilja Rautsi (\u201cRed Snow,\u201d \u201cNightborn,\u201d \u201cHatching\u201d).<\/p>\n

\n\tSet between two-timelines World War II Finland. We follow Alma (16), who gains telekinetic powers to save her father from the retreating Nazi army in Lapland. Then in the present day, the same character -aged 96- meets her granddaughter for the first time, and they must escape Alma\u2019s past sins, exploring the cost of gaining power.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201c\u2019Alma\u2019 deals with war and its consequences through three generations of women, combining a historical setting with themes of trauma, power and responsibility that feel particularly relevant today,\u201d says Pauliina Piipponen, who produces with Kai Nordberg and Kaarle Aho.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cEcho Chamber\u201d (Juha Fiilin, Finland)
Anime psychological horror penned by Adam Cullen. First pitched at Cartoon Next 2025.
\u201cEcho Chamber\u201d combines tone and artistic sensibilities of prestige drama with the anime-inspired spectacle of chilling body horror, viscerally rendered as only hand-drawn animation can deliver it,\u201d says Fiilin of Fiilin Good Films who produces with Debbie Stepgens. \u201cIt\u2019s a mature, thoughtful horror where a curse forces together two sisters estranged by their grief, but that curse inadvertently provides the circumstances and opportunities for them to learn what it is like to grieve together. To see that it is bittersweet and healing; not just bitter.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cLinden Lane 6\u201d (Josefina Rautiainen, Finland)
From the prolific It\u2019s Alive Films, behind Oscar submissions \u201cEuthanizer, \u201cThe Man Who Did Not Want to See Titanic\u201d and Finnish hit \u201c100 Litres of Gold.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt\u2019s a timely and provocative genre film that reverses the traditional roles of men and women in order to explore sexual harassment, manipulation, and abuse from the opposite perspective,\u201d says producer Anita Hypp\u00f6nen. \u201cBy changing these familiar dynamics, the film shows that abuse is often less about desire and more about power and control.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cLong Way Home\u201d (Kjersti Helen Rasmussen, Norway)
Produced by Nj\u00e5l Lambrechts for Truewest.
Character-driven dystopian road movie in which, after an electromagnetic pulse wipes out all electricity across Western Norway, Tea (22) and her neighbor Herman set out on a dangerous journey through a frozen and increasingly lawless landscape to reach her childhood home, confronting both the chaos around them and the darkness within.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cAt its core, it\u2019s a coming-of-age story,\u201d says Rasmussen. The physical journey home becomes an inner journey from dependency to independence, while the society around the characters faces its own test of trust, solidarity and community. The future I portray is both dark and hopeful. Systems will fail and people will fall, but it is in the darkness that we discover the light and what it costs to choose it,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cSauna Diplomacy\u201d (Teemu Niukkanen, Finland)
Debut feature from the director of the 2017 Sundance selected short \u201cFucking Bunnies\u201d and Canneseries winning series \u201cMoney Shot<\/a>.\u201d Produced by Tack Films\u2019 John Lundsten, behind the 2017 Palme d\u2019Or nominated short \u201cThe Ceiling.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tDark comedy, set in 1970, during the height of Finlandization. A Finnish diplomat is ordered to host a high-ranking Soviet official at his summer cottage for the weekend. What begins as an awkward diplomatic retreat descends into humiliation, manipulation, and psychological power games.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe Evil Eye\u201d (Kristian Lidegaard, Denmark)
Penned by Kristian Lidegaard and Sissel Dalsgaard Thomsen, produced by Manna Film (\u201cKalak,\u201d \u201cThe Quiet Migration\u201d).<\/p>\n

\n\tOnline found-footage horror film in which the main character, Oliver, is both the villain and the creator of the film we are watching. Obsessed with Lucas, a successful young swimmer who bullied him as a child, he secretly films and infiltrates his victim\u2019s life, sharing disturbing \u201cfilms\u201d on a closed online forum until the line between observer and destroyer disappears entirely. \u201cTold entirely through iPhones, POV glasses, surveillance cameras, screen recordings, social media and an uncensored private forum on the dark web, the film is both instantly recognizable and radically unique. As stories of online abuse and violent digital communities surface worldwide, the film\u2019s horror feels contemporary, borderless and disturbingly real,\u201d says producer Maria M\u00f8ller Kjeldgaard.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cTrespassers\u201d (Johannes Persson, Sweden)
From the director of the horror pic \u201cFeed,\u201d starring Molly Nutley, Sofia Kappel. Written by Melina Maraki (\u201cSummer of 1985\u201d); produced by \u201cMidsommar\u201d producer Patrik Andersson, with Mylla Films co-founder Jakob Abrahamsson.<\/p>\n

\n\tBackwoods horror-thriller in which four young people from a failed anti-establishment movement travel to the vast wilderness of Northern Sweden to reconnect with nature, but after a river rafting accident leaves them stranded, they discover they are not alone, and not welcome on land controlled by a group that has isolated itself for centuries with its own terrifying beliefs.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWhistler\u201d (Gudmund Helmsdal, Faroe Islands)
Produced by Outlier Projects\u2019 J\u00f3n Hammer (\u201cTrom\u201d), formerly at Zentropa.<\/p>\n

\n\tHelmsdal\u2019s \u201cBrother Troll\u201d bowed at 160 festivals and won best short at the Arizona Int\u2019l Film Festival. Survival folk horror from the set on the bird cliffs and grazing lands of the Faroe Islands, where four marine biologists race to catch the last ferry after their guide\u2019s fatal climbing accident, only to find themselves hunted across forbidden grazing land by a reclusive farmer who uses a bone whistle to command a pack of grotesque half-human creatures.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Home to some of the Nordics\u2019 hottest genre talents making waves at top international festivals \u2013 Hanna Bergholm…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":609034,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[300121,156,40689,409,111,139,300122,69,300123],"class_list":["post-609033","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-claire-willats","tag-entertainment","tag-finnish-film-affair","tag-movies","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nordic-genre-lab","tag-nz","tag-todd-brown"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/609033","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=609033"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/609033\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/609034"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=609033"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=609033"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=609033"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}