Tickets are now on sale for the 2024 Umeå Film Festival!

There’s something truly special about November. As the sun retreats, rain and wind give way to frost-kissed mornings and the season’s first snowfalls. In Umeå, November also means film festival time – a week where the glow of projectors brings fresh light into everyday life, making space for stories from every corner of the world. It’s a festival full of intriguing encounters, both on and off the screen. Regular visitors to the Umeå Film Festival know there’s often one day marked by a snowstorm. Last year, during opening night, heavy snowfall made it nearly impossible to reach the city center – yet Vävenscenen was filled with warmth and a dedicated audience. We’re so grateful you make it here against all odds.

This year’s program weaves together several distinct themes, the most prominent of which is: Children. We reflected on the best way to approach this focus, given that a theme centered on children doesn’t always drive ticket sales or curiosity. But that’s precisely why it’s so essential to keep the theme strong and clear. Eva Conradzon, who has stood in for me this year, made the decision this spring to invite the trailblazing Suzanne Osten, who was to celebrate her 80th birthday with us. Sadly, just weeks before the festival, we received the heartbreaking news of her sudden passing. During the planning of her film retrospective, Osten had urged Eva to call the Swedish Film Institute and encourage them to prioritize and elevate children’s films in their mission. We took her words to heart, allowing them to guide our focus on children throughout this year’s festival. This year, you’ll find children’s films showcased in prominent venues like Rådhustorget, Bildmuseet, and Vävenscenen. Our Rödspoven film grant is awarded to a documentary focusing on children’s lives, and we’ve also given our fantastic school cinema program extra space in this year’s program guide. In the Panorama section, you’ll find the Hungarian film Six Weeks, about a young table tennis talent who unexpectedly becomes pregnant, and the documentary Bunadsgeriljaen, following activist Anna Cecilie Solvik, who refuses to remove her national costume, the Nordmøre bunad, until the maternity ward in Kristiansund, Norway, is saved. And there’s much more for those who dive into the program.

Alongside our children’s focus, many of this year’s films explore the experience of living close to conflict – being at the heart of it, beside it, or in its aftermath. In many ways, these two themes resonate together: what is truly on the horizon for our children in the world we see today?

Finally, as you hold this Umeå Film Festival program, I encourage you to savor the rich selection of films and events we’ve carefully curated for you. I hope you take the opportunity this week to sit down in a theater and meet the world in the glow of the projectors.

Mia Rogersdotter Gran