NORDIC SHORT FILMS (CURATED BY LUC DARDENNE)
Bowmore Quartet Cinema Palace , BrusselsLuc Dardenne presents his pick of Nordic short films, with a string quartet performing an original score by David Achenberg live beneath the big screen.
Nordic short films with a live string quartet! Filmmaker Luc Dardenne has picked his favourites for us from a selection of films from Iceland, Finland, Sweden and Estonia.
The vulnerability of young people auditioning for drama school in Signals (Rúnar Ingi Einarsson, Iceland, 2024), the unlikely pairing of nuclear fears and Eurovision in Helsinki’s 1980s nightlife in Equal Dust (Jani Peltonen, Finland, 2025), and the threat of forced marriage in The Weight of Light (Anna Hints, Estonia, 2024) share the bill with Victor Sjöström’s Swedish film Trädgårdsmästaren (The Gardener).
The latter holds a unique place in Swedish cinema history. Made in 1912, it is, in Luc Dardenne’s words, “full of invention, shifts in rhythm and intense imagery, offering a critique of social relations and, above all, the position of women”. Its subject, a young girl sexually assaulted by her stepfather, was deemed too scandalous by the Swedish censors, and the film never received a premiere in its home country. All copies were thought lost until one surfaced at the US Library of Congress in 1979.
For this special screening, composer David Achenberg has written an original score for string quartet, performed live to follow every twist and turn of the film.
Languages and subtitles
- Signals: in Icelandic with English subtitles.
- The Weight of Light: in its original language with English subtitles.
- Equal Dust: no dialogue, with on-screen text in English.
- Trädgårdsmästaren: silent film with English intertitles.