The Northern Film Festival (NFF) will be organised for the 33rd time in 2011. With over 25,000 visitors in five days, the festival has grown to be one of the largest cultural events in the North of the Netherlands, besides being the largest regional film festival of the country. The festival takes place in all rooms of city theatre De Harmonie and Filmhuis Leeuwarden, and expands every year to other locations in the city of Leeuwarden. The Northern Film Festival is organised by Film in Friesland.
The programme of the festival has been divided into several parts. The main programme is The Interregional Competition, where a select couple of young European directors’ first or second films compete for the Matad’Or. Furthermore, many premieres and previews of films of cinematographic importance from all over the world are shown. These film programmes have been arranged thematically and geographically, in which Wij Noorderlingen (Us Northerners), with films from Scandinavia, the Baltic States and the Benelux, keeps coming back. The Northern Film Festival also presents a childrens’ and teenagers’ programme (school showings) and a programme for the visual arts and art films in cooperation with the Frisian Museum (NFF Art). There is also much attention for new developments at the borderline of film (for instance, NFF Labs, NFF Hybrid and NFF Buzz). Young Northern film makers also have a platform at their disposal with Nieuwe Noordelijke Oogst (New Northern Harvest) and the Noordelijk amateur Film Festival (Northern amateur Film Festival).
The three Northern provinces and the cities of Leeuwarden and Groningen acknowledge the importance and the quality of the festival. The Culture Covenant supports the festival with a financial contribution.
Interregional Competition
The Interregional Competition is the beating heart of the festival, with the award presentation of the Matad’Or and the accompanying cash prize of € 10,000. The competition was set up in 1996. The competition is a cinematographic exploration and representation of Europe’s regions in time, space and spirit. The notion of ‘border’ has a central position here. This border can be determined politically, psychologically, historically, economically or linguistically. The geography of the ‘Interregions’ encloses the European continent from Iceland to St. Petersburg, from Azerbaijan to the Rock of Gibraltar. Not necessarily the national cultures of the regions, but their diversity as well as their similarities are immensely fascinating from a viewpoint of artistic content. With the Interregional Competition, the NFF creates the most prominent platform for films and film makers from lesser visible regions in Europe, and thus presents movies that don’t usually get a chance. Around this competition, the Northern Film Festival presents a large amount of other film programmes, which also show thematic overlap.
Even more than in the past the NFF wishes to be a platform for European film makers and to put them into contact with each other and their audience. In order to realize this, some film makers introduce their films and the NFF has organized debates after film showings, just as forums, workshops and talk shows. However, financial means are necessary as well. The province of Friesland supports the goals of the Interregional Competition and therefore the prize, consisting of the Matad’Or (a sculpture) and € 10,000, are made available by the province of Friesland. This substantial amount of money has to be put into the realization of new projects.