Dear Friends of SFFLA—friends of Nordic and Baltic Cinema!
Can it really be???
We’ve made an annual residency of Nordic—and now Baltic as well—film in Hollywood—the mythical “film capital of the world!” And we’re celebrating big time—because that residency has lasted 25 years! It hardly seems possible—TWENTY-FIVE YEARS of showcasing the work of talented film makers and bringing our L.A. audience “Top films from the top of Europe!” Did you know that Nordic film alone counts for 10% of all European film. Add to Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden the films of Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia and the percentage represented is even higher.
This year marks TWENTY-FIVE YEARTS OF OPPORTUNITY—for audiences and film makers alike. We’re back at our “home away from home” – the Writers Guild Theater—on JANUARY 13, 14, 20, 21, 2024. We know it’s a Happy New Year if it starts with a chance to run away to the movies!
The first festival was in 1999! Our question was like the one in the American film “Field of Dreams.” We wondered “Would they come?” And sure enough, they showed up because there was interest, curiosity, hunger even. So on it went. And like the script from the baseball film they “….watch the game... as if they dipped themselves in magic waters…. The memories will be so thick they’ll have to brush them away from their faces.” We’ve seen plenty of tears, and memories, and untold stories, horrors, love, and laughs.
HOW did we do it? We did it with love and tenacity and the inspiration of the lines of a Beatles song “I can get by with a little help from my friends!” We’ve, frankly, seen life and death Instrumental in the founding of SFFLA was Chef David Larson. (At first he laughed and said “You’ve got to be crazy!” But he knew that already.) I hear the a disguished elderly man with tears saying “That was my story. No one’s every told it!” And the guy who came out of a film with some raucous scenes with nudity all flushed and said, “I’ll be back!” Three high school regulars were pleased to tell me all three of them were off to college to study cinema. Stories…. We’ve had sex and sagas, soccer and fencing, and psychological dramas, and even a substitute teacher who was actually an alien planning to kidnap a her class to another planet.
We did it with your help—and, of course, we need your help again. So please buy tickets and festival passes or BECOME A DONOR. Isn’t it nice to be needed! And, of course, the rewards are endless.
There it is—let’s celebrate!
Jim Koenig
Founder/Director
And the SFFLA team
