In this section you can submit films with a strong connection to the geographical area "north". You can submit both documentaries, feature films and short films. Northern Perspectives is our most loved section by our festivalaudience. 

Each year, we screen around 40 films in this section, five or six of the submitted films will be nominated to compete for our film prize Storspoven.

To be eligible for nomination for our film prize Storspoven, the film must have a strong connection to the northern parts of Sweden. This means that someone on the team should have a connection to northern Sweden, or that the film was produced or made in that region.

Films nominated for Storspoven will be notified in the confirmation email upon acceptance to the film festival.

The selection of nominated films is made by a reference group consisting of 4–5 people from different parts of the cultural field, along with staff from the film festival. The reference group watches all submitted entries. The group is reformed every other year.

To register your film for the Umeå Film Festival’s 2026 section Northern Perspectives, your submission must meet the following criteria:

The film or the filmmaker(s) must have a clear connection to a northern region — by that we mean the circumpolar areas around the Arctic, such as Greenland, Canada, Iceland, and similar. In which the northern parts of Sweden is considered.

You can give us a screener of your work in progress, but you need to have the film done until delivery for the festival in October.

The film must be completed in 2025 or 2026.

If selected, we will need your film in the DCP-format during October