✨ The official program for Nordic Star Festival 2026 is now released! ✨
This year’s festival unfolds across several cities in the Mälardalen region and Stockholm – with film screenings, conversations, and encounters with filmmakers in Arboga, Kungsör, Köping, Västerås, and Stockholm.
Each city offers its own unique atmosphere, from big-city pulse to small-town charm.
🎬 No matter where you join, you’ll experience new cinematic discoveries, international guests, and conversations about the future of film.
🍷 Along the way, there will also be smaller parties – and on October 24 at the beautiful Skandia Biografen in Stockholm, the festival culminates with a grand awards ceremony, where around 40 awards will be presented, followed by a celebration for 500-700 guests.
👉 Secure your tickets now – availability is limited!
19 okt
Kungsör
18.00–19.41 · Short film Slot 1 – Clashes and Conspiracies
The Beneath
Haunted by pressure and self-doubt, young model Lone retreats to her garden, her only refuge from a world that consumes her.
But when a mysterious underground creature begins destroying her sanctuary,
Lone’s battle to save it forces her to confront something far darker than what lurks beneath the soil: herself.
SOKO DIVERSE
The 19-year-old Ayşe Yılmaz is found dead by the roadside. All traces point to a hit-and-run accident.
But for investigators Jansen and Kowalski, the case is immediately clear: honor killing. Together, they
construct an absurd scenario in which cousins, brothers, and “cultural traditions” supposedly drove
the victim to her death. Crystal clear, without evidence. Only their colleague Obasi insists on sober
analysis and contradicts the hasty judgments. But he is ignored and his objections are laughed off.
When the true culprit finally confesses (an intoxicated German retiree), Jansen and Kowalski
immediately downplay the guilt. With black humor, satirical exaggeration and grotesque breaks,
SOKO DIVERS portrays a police force that prefers to believe in clichés rather than facts,
revealing its own double standards in the process.
The wheelchair
Don’t sit still.
Ertrinken – Gwen Dolyn
Synopsis saknas i FilmFreeway-exporten.
Is Every Republic Constructed on Flat Earth?
In this short work created using a webcam, a python sketch, and raspberry pi running on solar power, still images of the
sky are captured and sequenced every minute for the life of a single battery charge cycle. The resulting film is accompanied
by a software generated sine wave vibrating at 126.2hz in harmony with the sun. Finally, a throwaway joke becomes the
voiceover toward more broad questions about how we become locked into ideas about unfathomably big things.
The film presumes that the current energy crisis, as defined by streaming media, artificial intelligence, and the
various associated systems is also a condition of the colonizer logic adopted long before any of these technologies were conceived.
Sit Down
”Sitt ner” (2025) är ett drama som handlar om Greta, en uttråkad kvinna som är trött att killar hon dejtar aldrig tar henne på allvar
och Mikael, en man som har fokuset på sitt arbete och ser mest dejter som ett sätt att få igenom sina behov.
Deras dejt utvecklas till ett maktspel när Greta sätter ett mål för sig själv, hon vill att han ska ta henne på allvar,
hon ska ha all makt. Vad som än krävs. Han ska ner på knä.
The School Photographer
With the film industry in decline, BJÖRN (50), a seasoned first assistant director, finds himself unemployed and adrift.
To stay afloat, he takes a temporary job as a school photographer—an unfamiliar and humbling role. Over the course
of one long day, Björn’s fragile calm is tested by a string of phone calls from his mother, his teenage daughter, and his ex-wife.
Each conversation pulls him further off balance, and the tension begins to seep into the portraits he takes.
As his professional façade starts to crack, an unexpected encounter with a P.E. teacher at the school offers a brief moment
of understanding—and a hint that change might still be possible.
Noise
A young woman with much screaming for her attention learns how, with the help of TV noise,
one can enter a meditative state that supposedly quiets one’s mind, but which has unwarned downsides.
Live
Thirteen-year-old Saga goes live on social media after staying home from school, but a sudden
confrontation with her mother brings the family’s dark secrets to light.
Erik & Tom
During a midsummer celebration, seventeen-year-old Tom pushes his limits to earn his older brother’s respect.
On the way between two parties, Tom, his brother, and their friends stop at a mythical cliff.
When the brother’s rivalry turns into a dangerous dare, Tom must decide how far he’ll go to prove he’s not weak.
The After Party
Joel and his childhood friend Mattias have always been opposites. Joel, quiet and thoughtful, Mattias, loud and confident.
A seemingly ordinary evening takes a turn when Mattias receives a call from his drunk girlfriend Emma. Slowly, a deeper
concern under the surface of insecurity and denial is revealed. When Mattias later gets into a fight at a party, a truth is
revealed, his own confusion about sexuality and self-image. Joel is forced to confront his friend’s destructive masculinity
and defense mechanisms. The Afterparty is a tragic comedy, a quiet contemplation of how toxic masculinity can distort
desires and one’s self-image.
Chanterelle
After eating a mushroom in the forest, the man sees something strange.
But when he collapses to the ground, you start to wonder if it was a wise choice.
20.11–21.41 · Feature Film slot 2 – Heval Bırako
Heval Bırako
The darkness of war casts a shadow over the light of childhood. Two brothers like branches growing from a
single root are tossed by different winds. Despite the distance, silence and traces of blood that may separate
them a hidden bond still connects their hearts. HEVAL BIRAKO recounts how war shattered childhood dreams
and how brotherhood can sprout even under the rubble of longing and cultural resistance.