R&A Shorts: Nordic Gems

This selection of best Nordic shorts offers a stunning assortment of powerful drama and stories that spin around the themes of family circumstances and untold feelings. The screening, filled with strong emotions, challenges and rewards its viewer.

In Machines, a single mom from Oslo is working a long shift as a cleaner to be able to gift her son a trip abroad, which she could never afford before. However, financial pressure and the collision of differing dreams derail their lives.

A woman is driving toward the harbour with a child on board. A new, exciting love is waiting on the cruise, but the ghosts of her past life are lurking in the rearview mirror. In the film Deck 5b, Alma Pöysti plays a divorced mother, who’s sailing on the sea of conflicting needs. The Swedish film was named as the Best International Short Film at the Toronto International Film Festival.

Completed in the legendary Danish film school Super16, and having competed at the Cannes Film Festival, Maybe in March depicts one family’s last days at their homestead that’s being transferred to new owners. The cinematography, skilfully recording the alteration of light and shade, expresses the family members’ mental pain that’s been pushed aside.

The screening culminates in Rúnar Rúnarsson’s (When the Light Breaks, R&A 2025) strong, heart-wrenching O. Experienced actor Ingvar Sigurdsson, interpreting his character with rough tenderness, plays an alcoholic father that attends his estranged daughter’s wedding. However, the pressure of the family celebration proves to be too much. The award-winning short is a work approaching perfection, after which you won’t be the same.

Annu Suvanto (translated by Vilja Hynynen)