The festival has started!
We mark the opening of the festival with digital welcome speeches and a greeting from the festival directors. Fill your glass and join us for a different opening celebration!.
Welcome to the 30th anniversary in digital colors!
Our good old slogan "See the world from a different angle" has always felt appropriate. For years, Films from the South has provided the audiences of Oslo with new angles and views of the world and of film. Films from every conceivable country have throughout our festival found their way to a cinema near you, and we have contributed heavily to put world cinema on the radar of Norwegian cinemas and the audience’s awareness.
Over the years, we have provided films for broad and narrow tastes, for the quirkiest cineastes or the most devoted globetrotters, for the politically engaged and for those who just want to let their dreams fly. Our impetus has been to promote films that in different ways mirror parts of our fractious and multifaceted world.
For a long time, we have been planning for a special anniversary; a celebration of thirty years of enriching Oslo's cultural scene and contributing to a more open and inclusive city. And it has definitely turned out to be special, albeit in a completely different way than we could have imagined! As we know, reality surpasses any fiction story, and like the rest of the world and the culture field, we have had to realign ourselves.
Instead of welcoming you to the 30th Films from the South festival in a dark cinema hall – complete with red carpet, flowers, opening speeches and a sparkling drink after the opening film – we now invite you on a digital journey through films from the south. For the first time, the festival is available to audiences all over Norway, which is something we are truly happy about.
Now you can stream away 24/7 from your own living room, and we hope that many of you will join us into the digital festival world. Film is definitely best experienced in a cinema, but it’s not all that bad to watch from your own sofa either, at least in the current situation!
Welcome, both to our experienced festivalgoers and to the newcomers from around the country!
Lasse Skagen, artistic director, and
Åse Meyer, managing director of Oslo Festival Agency.
A greeting from the Mayor of Oslo
Mayor of Oslo Marianne Borgen greets the festival (in Norvegian):
A greeting from the Vice Mayor for Culture
Oslo’s Vice Mayor for Culture and Sport, Omar Samy Gamal, was supposed to open the festival in Vika cinema this evening. Watch his opening speech to the festival here (in Norvegian):