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Passholders enjoy exclusive access to all festival screenings at Majestic Bay Theatres, ensuring you've got a seat for every moment of movie magic. It's more than just a ticket—it's your passport to the best of Nordic cinema!
7pm Another Round (116 minutes)
| Four friends, all teachers at various stages of middle age, are stuck in a rut. Unable to share their passions either at school or at home, they embark on an audacious experiment from an obscure philosopher: to see if a constant level of alcohol in their blood will help them find greater freedom and happiness. At first they each find a newfound zest, but as the gang pushes their experiment further, issues that have been simmering for years come to a head and the men are faced with a choice: reckon with their behavior or continue on the same course. Underscored by delicate and affecting camerawork, director Thomas Vinterberg's spry script, co-written with regular collaborator Tobias Lindholm, uses this bold premise to explore the euphoria and pain of an unbridled life. Playing a once brilliant but now world-weary shell of a man, the ever surprising Mads Mikkelsen delivers a fierce and touching performance. (Samuel Goldwyn) Directed by Thomas Vinterberg Released in 2020 |
10:30am The Wedding of Palo (90 minutes)
| Navarana, a young Inuit woman, keeps house for her three brothers. She is more skilled than any other woman in the summer settlement at skinning seals and dressing skins, and her brothers, who are very proud of her, await with anxiety the day when she must leave them to tend someone else's tallow lamp. They are aware that she has turned her mind to a man, but they do not yet know whether it is Palo or Samo, two of the young men of the settlement. (Danish Film Institute) Directed by Friedrich Dahlsheim Released in 1934 |
12pm – 1pm Break
1pm Shorts: Life In Denmark (37 minutes) and Max By Chance (29 minutes)
| Life In Denmark (37 minutes) - "The intention of the film is to give an impression of what small exotic Denmark looks like, what the strange Danes look like and how they are. Nearly 100 Danes are presented in the film, amongst them a racing cyclist, a Minister of Finance, a popular actor and 13 unmarried women from a provincial town. "There is too much fogginess and rain and melancholy in most of the pictures of Denmark", says Jørgen Leth. "But not in my film. I would like to show you some authentic, clear and beautiful pictures from this strange country." (Danish Film Institute) Directed by Jørgen Leth, Released in 1972 Max By Chance (29 minutes) - This is the story of Max, the director's own story, playfully animated within the realms of documentary. Max's story traces back several generations to sailors, industrialists and Summer of Love hippies - everyone depicted with whole-hearted love and equal amounts of irony. But there is something more at stake here, something larger than the biographical filmic note of a single man. The film embraces with vulnerable playfulness life's many coincidences and grapples with questions such as genetics, destiny and family patterns. (Danish Film Institute) Directed by Max Kestner, Released in 2004 |
2pm – 2:30pm Break
2:30pm Flee (89 minutes)
| Recounted mostly through animation, Amin opens up about his past for the first time of his journey as a child refugee from Afghanistan. He begins to look back over his life as he grapples with a painful secret he has keep hidden for 20 years, one that threatens to derail the life he has built for himself and his soon to be husband. (NEON) Directed by Jonas Poher Rasmussen Released in 2021 |
4pm – 5pm Break
5pm Babette's Feast (103 minutes)
| At once a rousing paean to artistic creation, a delicate evocation of divine grace, and the ultimate film about food, the Oscar-winning Babette’s Feast is a deeply beloved treasure of cinema. Directed by Gabriel Axel and adapted from a story by Isak Dinesen, it is the lovingly layered tale of a French housekeeper with a mysterious past who brings quiet revolution in the form of one exquisite meal to a circle of starkly pious villagers in late nineteenth-century Denmark. Babette’s Feast combines earthiness and reverence in an indescribably moving depiction of sensual pleasure that goes to your head like fine champagne. (Criterion) Directed by Gabriel Axel Released in 1987 |
6:43pm – 7pm Break
7pm A Royal Affair (137 minutes)
| Oscar® Nominee Best Foreign Language Film - Denmark A ROYAL AFFAIR is the true story of an ordinary man who wins the queen's heart and starts a revolution. Centering on the intriguing love triangle between the ever more insane Danish King Christian VII (Mikkel Boe Følsgaard), the royal physician who is a man of enlightenment and idealism Struensee (Mads Mikkelsen) and the young but strong Queen Caroline Mathilda (Alicia Vikander), A ROYAL AFFAIR is the gripping tale of brave idealists who risk everything in their pursuit of freedom for their people… Above all it is the story of a passionate and forbidden romance that changed an entire nation. (Magnolia Films) Directed by Nikolaj Arcel Released in 2012 |
11:30am TBD
1:30 – 2pm Break
2pm The Word (126 minutes)
| A farmer’s family is torn apart by faith, sanctity, and love—one child believes he’s Jesus Christ, a second proclaims himself agnostic, and the third falls in love with a fundamentalist’s daughter. Putting the lie to the term “organized religion,” Ordet (The Word) is a challenge to simple facts and dogmatic orthodoxy. Layering multiple stories of faith and rebellion, Dreyer’s adaptation of Kaj Munk’s play quietly builds towards a shattering, miraculous climax. (Criterion) Directed by Carl Theodor Dreyer Released in 1955 |
4:06pm – 5pm Break
5pm The Man Who Thought Life (93 minutes)
| The mysterious Mr. Steinmetz has the acquired the ability to create things and beings by will alone. Only, after a while his creations invariably disappear. He approaches a famous brain surgeon, Max Holst, but when Max refuses to help, Steinmetz brings his doppelgänger into being to replace him. (MUBI) Directed by Jens Ravn Released in 1969 |
6:33pm – 7pm Break
7pm Melancholia (135 minutes)
| In this beautiful movie about the end of the world, Justine (Kirsten Dunst) and Michael (Alexander Skarsgård) are celebrating their marriage at a sumptuous party in the home of her sister Claire (Charlotte Gainsbourg), and brother-in-law John (Kiefer Sutherland). Despite Claire’s best efforts, the wedding is a fiasco, with family tensions mounting and relationships fraying. Meanwhile, a planet called Melancholia is heading directly towards Earth… MELANCHOLIA is a psychological disaster film from director Lars von Trier. (Magnolia Films) Directed by Lars von Trier Released in 2011 |
This year the SEA-Nordic Film Festival line-up is hand-picked by Thomas Christensen, the Lead Curator at the Danish Film Institute.
