GOTEBORG, Sweden (AP) – Cinema in confinement: Scandinavia’s largest film festival is exploring the social isolation resulting from COVID-19 by creating a temporary cinema-for-one on a desolate island in the North Sea with the sole company of the events ‘entire movie selection and enough food to last the week.
Lisa Enroth was selected from 12,000 volunteers to spend a week on the island of Hamneskar at Pater Noster, an old lighthouse that has become a boutique hotel. A Swedish emergency nurse in love with cinema, Lisa said that isolation would give her “time to reflect and be alone” after a busy year in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic.
This year’s Goteborg Film Festival, which runs from January 29 to February 29. 8, it is certainly unique. “The Isolated Cinema” is only accessible by small boat and is located at the end of an archipelago in one of the most arid and windy locations in western Sweden.
Enroth, who left for the island on Saturday, watches the films online in his bedroom or in the living room, or can watch them from the top of the lighthouse itself, where the organizers set up a small screen surrounded by an incredible view.
The artistic director of the 44th Goteborg Film Festival, Jonas Holmberg, hopes that this extreme viewing experience can help to reflect on what the pandemic has affected our relationship with cinema.
“During this pandemic, many people turned to cinema when isolated,” he said. “But the pandemic has also changed the way we experience movies.”
Like most events, the film festival went online, as COVID-19 restrictions banned public meetings, but organizers created a real-time streaming platform accessible to people living in Sweden in an attempt to reproduce , although virtually, the collective exhibition of cinema experience.
At Draken cinema, the traditional home of the film festival, only one ticket is available for each screening, but filmmakers, actors or producers can also attend to talk about their work.
The opening gala saw the Swedish debut of Tove, the 2020 biographical film by Finnish author and illustrator Tove Jansson, creator of the Moonins series. Walking on an empty red carpet, the film’s director and lead actress donned the role and the organizers sought to replicate the thrill of a premiere for the only viewer in the hall. But a buzz was also found online, with people posting photos dressed for the premiere and drinking champagne.
“We want to encourage that and make it as social as possible,” said Holmberg.
For the cinematic experience of the real world, a lottery determines who wins the ticket and on Saturday it was Sandra Fogel’s turn to sit alone.
Of the 700 seats to choose from, she sat off the center a few rows to the side.
“It’s a little sad,” she said, “because you don’t know what will happen when the pandemic is over. What will happen to the cinemas? “