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VELKOMMEN! WELCOME!
Lisa Hoen Festival Director
Martha Otte Program Director
TIFF’s heart
Transformation
If a festival could have a heart, TIFF’s beating heart would be our audience. Tromsø International Film Festival’s 30th anniversary will be a celebration of the TIFF audience. It’s the TIFF-goers who have always embraced our film program, no matter how strange, weird, slow or demanding films we might present. If the movie was shot in a country you hardly ever heard about, it’s just a trigger to explore more. The TIFF audience is always curious, ready to look into new worlds, traverse a number of cultures and investigate unexpected depths. Our crowd easily overcomes obstacles like complete darkness, cold winter storms, snowdrifts and icy pavements to reach the cinemas to watch 1, 2 or maybe 20 TIFF-films every January. You have shown us that you love films and TIFF, and that you have a true #tifflove. We are greatful for having such an open-minded audience. This makes us brave, willing to take risks and program artistic films that might be both challenging and inspiring to all of us.
Transformation is the grand theme for this year’s festival program. Imagine that, after years of insisting that there is no, and really should be no grand theme for any festival program. Repeating each year that there are only themes in plural: Strands, sidebars, spotlights, retrospectives, focus - these are the tools programmers have to organize and contextualize single films into a more or less meaningful whole known as «the program». But in 2020 we have never been closer to having a grand theme at TIFF. Activism is all about shaping change, first envisioning, then striving to make a better world. Cinema has always played and will continue to play an important role in articulating and documenting social change. The choice to focus on film from Ukraine confirms this idea, exemplified here through the artistic endeavours of a new generation of filmmakers with the urge and the tools to get a handle on state of constant flux that has formed them. Transformation is the goal, the very essence of truth and reconciliation. Thus our opening film one day in the life of noah piaguttuk sets the bar for the grand theme of TIFF 2020.
But remember, a challenge is something you should never face alone. Nobody shold be left out in the cold. Bring a friend, someone who never attended TIFF, and head for the warm cinema togehter. Thank you for 30 years of #tifflove
Meanwhile, on an admittedly lesser scale, TIFF as an organization also undergoes a transformation, with Lisa Therese Hoen having stepped into the role of Festival Director. I wish her the best of luck. At the same time, I want to thank everyone – my colleagues, the staff, the volunteers, the board, all the partners of the festival, and last, but not least, the audience – for 21 amazing years of working together to bring the best possible films from the whole world, including our own region, to the screens of the Tromsø International Film Festival. It’s been quite a trip.
