Eclectic but curated. Smart without snark. Ideas journalism with a head and heart. You may opt out or contact us anytime. When I was in the first grade, I so believed in the moving images I saw in cartoons that I once jumped off the top of our garage with an open umbrella as my parachute. Fifteen years ago, I started a Scandinavian Film Festival in Los Angeles, and, as a veteran of leaps of faith, I found the experience to be strangely familiar.
Fortunately, this time, I was right. My European heritage is German and Swiss, but, a few decades ago, through friendships and my work in music, I began to take an interest in the Nordic countries. I loved the movie, but I learned it did not have a North American distributor. There had never been a Scandinavian film festival in Los Angeles. I had only been to random screenings of Nordic films at larger festivals or on college campuses with a scant crowdβwhere it was usually a re-screening of a classic Ingmar Bergman film.
I wanted a festival that would be not just visible but also usefulβfor the showcasing of work by northern European filmmakers, for networking, and for cultural exchange.
I mapped out a plan to share the films and cover expenses. I became a crusader with a tin cup. We found a home for the festival at the Writers Guild Theater in Beverly Hills, and prospects looked positive for paying the rent. I also began learning about permissions, distributors, publicists, and hype. We were swamped by requests for press credentials, most of them from people who had never written anything but wanted to crash the party.
But I like to think we managed it with integrity, treating everyone well. On that first opening night, in , I had some of the same feeling as when I jumped from the garage roof with the parachute. Then we were rolling: northern lights, camera, action! The theater was full. It was clear that Hollywood was interested in Nordic film.
