NOT since the heyday of the late director Ingmar Bergman has so much interest been aroused by films from Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden. 

I caught up by phone to Reykjavik with Christof Wehmeier, head of festival promotion at the Icelandic Film Centre and an expert on Scandi films. 

This month’s Scandinavian Film Festival across Australia opens with a big historical drama. 

Wehmeier says that most other countries have had their big costume blockbusters, but not the Nordic film scene. 

Now, in a lavish co-production between Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Iceland, the Czech Republic and Poland comes “Margrete – Queen of the North”. 

Set in 1402 and directed by Charlotte Sieling, it explores the dilemmas faced by Denmark’s Queen Margrete, the ruler who brokered the Kalmar Union that united Sweden, Norway and Denmark. 

Partly lost in the mists of time, the story is deeply significant to Scandinavian countries, explaining why the project attracted the largest single grant ever made by the Danish Film Institute.

Its choice as the festival’s opening night film is a no-brainer. 

Featuring Danish superstar Trine Dyrholm, once called by Alec Baldwin “the best actress in the world”, the film is full of “epic drama and humour that kind of unites us,” Wehmeier says. 

But he’s also keen to point out that each country in the Nordic regions has its own language and its own character. 

The Norwegian film “Nothing to Laugh About”, for instance, involves a very particular sense of humour as it tells the story of Kasper, a successful stand-up comedian facing cancer, who sets out on a journey to rediscover himself and his laughter. 

That’s by the Norwegian film director Petter Næss, director of the cult film (also a stage play seen here in Canberra) “Elling”, about differently-abled people living in the wider community. 

“It’s hard to watch, but it is so believable, the way cancer affects him and how he decides to do something about it,” Wehmeier says.

“It’s a combination of drama and laughter and it’s so believable that it stays with you.” 

On a related theme, from Sweden, comes “Comedy Queen”, a story of loss, anger and healing that follows a 13-year-old girl who wants to become a stand-up comedian. 

A hit direct from the 2022 Cannes Film Festival Critics’ Week is Finland’s “The Woodcutter Story”, the directorial debut for Mikko Myllylahti in which Pepe the woodcutter’s quiet life is torn apart by a series of tragic events. 

And, yes, there certainly is an Icelandic inclusion, the mystery thriller “Quake”, about a single mother fighting to keep her young son while trying to piece together her life after losing her memory in a seizure,” 

Directed by Icelandic Film School lecturer Tinna Hrafnsdóttir, who also performs in “Margrete – Queen of the North”, it’s based on a best-selling Icelandic novel, “Grand Mal” by Audur Jonsdóttir. 

“The Emigrants” is a reboot by director Erik Poppe of a famous film made in 1971 starring Max von Sydow and Liv Ullmann as Swedish immigrants who struggle to establish a new life for themselves in 19th century Minnesota, now telling the story from Kristina’s perspective. 

Those Nordic screen goddesses are not forgotten either, with the “Scandi Screen Sirens” section screening classics “Casablanca”, starring Ingrid Bergman; “Queen Christina”, starring Greta Garbo; the 2013 final-cut version of horror film “The Wicker Man”, featuring Britt Ekland and Liv Ullmann in Ingmar Bergman’s drama “The Serpent’s Egg”. 

Closing the festival will be “The New Land”, the 1972 prequel to the original film of “The Emigrants”.

For Wehmeier, it’s accessible realism that characterises all the films chosen for the coming festival.

Scandinavian Film Festival, Palace Electric, July 13-August 7.