Night Visions International Film Festival is getting ready to conquer the screens in Helsinki, Finland again from March 29 to April 2, 2023. Now celebrating its 26h anniversary, Scandinavia’s no. 1 genre film extravaganza teases the audiences with its first wave of announcements of the upcoming edition.
The spring 2023 edition opens with the Finnish premiere screening of Brandon Cronenberg’s INFINITY POOL (Canada / Croatia / Hungary, 2023), a stunning sci-fi thriller that became the talk of the town in Sundance at its world premiere as well as at its European prestige bow in the Official Selection of Berlin International Film Festival in February.
Another highly anticipated entry in the lineup is SCREAM VI (USA 2023), Matt Bettinelli-Olpini and Tyler Gillett’s (Ready or Not) follow up to the directors’ 2022 blockbuster Scream 5. Hailed as the goriest entry in the genre franchise, SCREAM VI reunites the survivors of the previous part of the saga in the concrete jungle of New York City.
Skewing slightly more arthouse, Joanna Hogg’s (Souvenir 1 & 2) TIFF 2022 hit THE ETERNAL DAUGHTER (USA / UK, 2022) is a Gothic haunted house horror boasting a stellar lead performance by the one and only Tilda Swinton.
The festival’s offering of current Nordic highlights focuses on female visionaries of Scandinavia’s contemporary genre cinema landscape. Karoline Lyngbye’s feature debut SUPERPOSITION (Denmark, 2023) is an intelligent sci-fi thiller that generated a heap of positive buzz at its Rotterdam world premiere in January. Kjersti Helen Rasmussen’s psychological chiller NIGHTMARE (Norway, 2022) makes the most out of its amazingly talented leads, Skam TV show superstar Herman Tømmeraas and Elli Harboe (the titular lead of Joachim Trier’s Thelma) as a young couple slowly entering a spiral of madness due to bizarre bad dreams.
The most substantial Finnish contribution to the lineup is the high-octane actioner LAYERS OF LIES (Finland / Iran, 2023), a European premiere at the festival. Directed by and starring Ramin Sohrab, Layers of Lies is a story of a fireman turning into a fierce fighting machine after his wife is kidnapped in Iran. An expert on martial arts and stunts who once taught Wesley Snipes to fight, Sohrab’s expertise truly manifests itself in the action sequences of the film.
The venues of the spring 2023 edition of the festival include Bio Rex Lasipalatsi, Cinema Orion and WHS Teatteri Union. The festival wraps up with the traditional all-nighter movie marathon at Cinema Orion on the night between Saturday, April 1, and Sunday, April 2.
The first sneak peek screenings of the Official Selection will take place at WHS Teatteri Union on Saturday, March 18.
The full festival lineup will be announced on Tuesday, March 14. Tickets to all screenings go on sale on Friday, March 17, at the festival’s website.