About Northern Character International Film & TV Festival
Northern Character Film&TV Festival in Murmansk has existed since 2008.
It was born thanks to some friends and TV- journalists from four countries, who realized their dream to create a ground for meetings and discussions, being eager to trace in which direction contemporary European audiovisual art is developing.
Gradually, it was the cultural aspect that became the main locomotive of the organizers’ and participants’ interest, and the festival became a meeting place not only for journalists, but also for filmmakers, as well as for the audience, i.e people living in Murmansk and visitors to the city, too.
In this also lies the uniqueness of the festival: TV-journalists get introduced to new approaches of story-telling, filmmakers pick up new themes and stories, and the audience can ask questions directly to the filmmakers and journalists about their works.
This year Northern Character will expand its borders. It will start in northern Murmansk region; in the city of Zapolyarny, near the Norwegian border, and will be continued in Murmansk city, which is almost in the middle of the region.
In this way we would like to present Murmansk region as a possible film location for Russian and foreign production companies.
The festival unites both filmmakers and TV-journalists. At Northern Character, their works are evaluated by the international Festival Jury of professionals from all four countries: Russia, Finland, Sweden and Norway.
In 2020, for the first time, Northern Character introduces a new category: Full-length Feature Film, where films by Russian and foreign filmmakers will be presented.
Murmansk region is the entry to Russia for many visitors from abroad. Therefore, one of the festival goals is to introduce Russia to our foreign film & TV colleagues as a hospitable country, where locals understand and appreciate modern /contemporary art and are ready to discuss the most complex topics. The Festival competition program is based on films from Russia, Norway, Sweden and Finland.
The Festival´s focus is on people who live in the North, appreciating its severe beauty, being creative and even inspiring others to overcome difficulties. A good film excites the audience and might lead to new ideas and approaches. Therefore, another aim of Northern Character is to contribute to developing more complex cultural layers in Murmansk region, by supporting local creators of films and cultural projects who are ready to contribute to developing of a local film industry.
The main festival events will be available for a broad audience in the cities of Zapolyarny and Murmansk, where the local audience and filmmakers easily can communicate with each other. It is no coincidence that one of the key festival events is the debate arena Media Forum, where the main speakers are journalists from different countries, and where the local audience might take part in the discussions as well.