From Families to Flux – The Programme for the 68 Nordic Film Days Lübeck is now Online

Lübeck, October 13, 2026. The line-up for the 2026 Nordic Film Days Lübeck is set. For five days, from November 4 – 8, the once capital of the Hanseatic League will again become home port for films from northern and northeastern Europe, showcasing outstanding and prize-winning cinematic discoveries, and the people who have left a lasting mark on movie-making.

For the first time, the festival programme, highlights, and new aspects will be presented as a podcast, available today anywhere you get your podcasts. The full programme is also now available online at www.nordische-filmtage.de. The 68th Nordic Film Days runs from November 4 – 8, 2026, with an early-bird kick-off on November 3 with Ocean Day in the Infinity Dome. The festival will show 186 films from northern and northeast Europe and Germany at Lübeck venues, in some 250 screenings and special events, including 33 for school classes. In addition, the NFL will present ca. 30 special events. Many of the films in the ten festival sections this year deal with family and change or transition, a leitmotif reflected in the festival itself. The NFL has already announced the programmes for the Retrospective, the Homage, the Honorary Award for Anne Lajla Utsi, and the November 4 opening night showing of the German premiere of Ulya (2026, orig. title: Uļa) by director Viesturs Kairišs.

The 2026 Nordic Film Days – a World in Flux, Understanding the World

“The world is changing at breakneck speed. Culture, cinema, and film festivals can help us understand this world in flux. Best case scenario, they even provide an impetus to change things for the better. And the festival is also in transition. It was always a stage for new talent, cinematic innovation and cross-section formats. We are bolstering our accessibility range and creating new forms of access. And the question of how people will respond to that upheaval is a wonderful in to discussions with our film guests and the fantastic audiences”, says Hanna Reifgerst. As the NFL’s new artistic director, she is in charge of the Narrative Features, Documentary Features, and Specials sections for the first time this year.

The subject of family in all its complexity is at the core of the Retrospective “Buddenbrooks p:reloaded”, complemented by the exhibition “Family Affairs” in Buddenbrook House (from October 30, 2026 in St. Annen Museum). Family dynamics play a major role in many of the current films as well – whether it is the Golden Palm winner at Cannes, Fjord (2026) by Cristian Mungiu, about a devoutly Christian Romanian-Norwegian family, or the Finnish documentary The Arctic Circle of Lust (2026, orig. title: Pohjoinen intohimo) by Markku Heikkinen. The Homage section, curated by honorary award recipient Anne Lajla Utsi, also looks at family and at the (cinematic) culture of the Sámi. The award will be presented to Utsi, director of the International Sámi Film Institute, on November 4 during opening ceremonies. She is representative of the festival’s focus on Sápmi and has been a key force in boosting the worldwide visibility of the film culture of the Sámi, the only indigenous people in the EU or Scandinavia recognized under international law. Utsi will be introduced by Nils Gaup, who directed the legendary film Pathfinder (1987, orig. title: Ofelaš), considered the international breakthrough for Sámi film, which is screening in this year’s Homage section.

Many of the festival films will be German, European, or world premieres. The programme ranges from debuts and re-discoveries (such as the newly-restored 1986 November Cats by Sigrun Koeppe, with Jürgen Vogel in his first role) to highlights from the festival season such as Fjord or Brace Your Heart (2026, orig. title: Garrat Du Váimmu) by Amanda Kernell. Also on offer are experimental or new, fascinating films for children and young adults, like the documentary Christmas tale The Mystery Package (2026, orig. title: Mysteriepakken) by Silje Evensmo Jacobsen. Lübeck will welcome numerous guests to the festival, including Jürgen Vogel, Donata Wenders, Monika Treut, Klaus Härö, Nils Gaup, or Inunnguaq Petrussen, CEO of the Greenlandic Film Institute.

Dreaming of Streaming Once again the festival will also become the Nordic Streaming Days, with more than half of the festival programme available online from November 4 – 15, 2026 at online.nordische-filmtage.de. The extensive VoD spectrum will include the six TV series showing at the NFL from Denmark, Sweden, Finland, and Norway.

More than Just Movies –Ocean Day, Concert, Museums – and a New Price Structure

The festival mounts numerous side-bar events and cooperations – and has a bit of good news. For the first time, the Nordic Film Days Lübeck will award 11 prizes worth a total of € 70,000. That has been made possible by the Gemeinnützige Sparkassenstiftung (regional savings bank foundation), which has increased the endowment for the award to a Young Audience film to € 7,500. We are especially pleased that the Superkunstfestival and Theater Lübeck, beginning this year, will endow the prizes for the children’s and young adult juries.

Managing director Susanne Kasimir says, “I am grateful to all the partners and people whose commitment and contributions are key to making the Nordic Film Days Lübeck possible. The festival is a unique showcase for the northern and Baltic film landscapes. As a Hanseatic League city, we are a gateway to the Baltic and closely linked to Scandinavia and the Baltic states. Not the least of reasons why filmmakers, industry players, and audiences enjoy meeting up here – and putting Nordic film culture in the spotlight.” For Susanne Kasimir, this is her seventh and therefore final festival, as she is due to retire on 1 May 2027. Kasimir emphasises that the NFL is a significant location draw, bringing value creation with it, praising the fact that, “what is called an indirect profitability study is running in cooperation with Theater Lübeck, to analyse the regional economic benefits of our two institutions.” The results of the study will be published next spring. Part of the study includes surveying visitors during the Nordic Film Days.

Visitors will get an extra “freebie” sixth festival day on November 3, with Ocean Day at the Full Dome. Thanks to a donation by the Possehl Foundation, admission is free to anyone for an entire day that will be devoted to marine conservation, with 360° films, as well as scientific and artistic presentations. It kicks off with Lübeck mayor Jan Lindenau introducing the city’s bid to become an “ocean protection city”.

Audiences can enjoy another showpiece event on November 8, 2026 when the Retropective will screen director Gerhard Lamprecht’s 1923 Buddenbrooks,with the silent film accompanied by live music under the baton of Prof. Franz Danksagmüller at the Lübeck Academy of Music.

In cooperation with Lübeck’s museums, the NFL programme includes a discussion of the Homage film Homecoming about the restitution of Sámi cultural assets (November 5, 2026 in the Museum of Nature and Environment), and a tour of the Buddenbrook House temporary exhibition “Family Affairs” (opening October 30, tour on November 8, 2026 in St. Annen museum).

On Your Marks, Get Set, Tickets! Starting October 24^th Online

There are more changes to the festival in the form a new ticket pricing structure. Susanne Kasimir says, “Of course, raising ticket prices was unavoidable, but ultimately the Nordic Film Days wants to draw more people into the cinemas.” There are 50% discounted tickets, ticket prices remain the same for children and young people, and school class screenings are still free, and even include a public transit ticket to get to the venue. The new proprietary festival ticketing system launched last year means there is no longer a 10 % online purchase fee. At the same time, advance ticket sales are now solely online. Advance sales start on Saturday, October 24, at 3 pm. “What does that mean? No more standing in line, although that had become a beloved ritual for many over the decades. The Friends of the Nordic Film Days, however, still offers lots of opportunities for film fans to meet up”, says Susanne Kasimir.

During the festival, tickets will be available at the NFL counter in the CineStar Stadthalle cinema. The counter does not accept cash. To open up festival access, there will be three new passes. Students and vocational trainees can purchase the Stuzubi Pass, the Family Pass is for groups whether related or not, and there is a pass for late night screenings – all with attractive additional benefits and simplified digital ticket sales. And in cooperation with the non-profit KulturTafel, the NFL will continue to donate tickets for the organisation to distribute. As an added bonus, anyone with a ticket to the Nordic Film Days will receive a 20% discount throughout November on day passes to Lübeck’s museums.

Programme & Prices

In 2026, the NFL film programme is divided into ten sections, comprising feature and short films, episodic television, and immersive works from northern and northeastern Europe.

The Competition section will show 13 narrative and 12 documentary films. There are five films in the Specials section, while Nordic Shorts is showing 26, half of which are documentaries. The Filmforum will show 34 productions from Schleswig-Holstein and Hamburg, 16 features and 18 short films.

For the young at heart, the Young Audience section will screen 42 films – 11 narratives, three documentaries, 11 animated films, and 17 shorts, including 12 in school screenings. Immersion 360° has 36 works on offer. The Homage curated by Anne Lajla Utsi will present five features and four short films. Eleven films will be shown as part of the Retrospective.

Many films are nominated for the 11 Jury and Audiences prizes, to be selected by 11 juries and awarded on Saturday, November 7 as part of the glittering Prize Gala at Theater Lübeck. The recipients of the fourth Lübeck Script Development Grant will be announced during opening ceremonies on November 4. 

Alongside the Homage and Retrospective programmes, the honorary award, and the opening night film (see previous press releases), the other festival sections are:

The Young Audience section, curated for the first time this year by Dascha Petuchow, will showcase the entire spectrum of cinematic storytelling for the target audience in narratives, debuts, short, and documentaries. Changes also play a role in the movies, whether in society or in the environment, Alongside issues like belonging, relationships, and community.

In keeping with its tradition, the Filmforum section focusses on new talent, debuts, and the northern German filmmaking scene. Young creatives from the region will show work that was sometimes made with the support of the northern lights initiative of broadcaster NDR and the MOIN film fund, as well as shorts from the MOIN talents programme. They join world premieres and international productions with close links to Schleswig-Holstein and Hamburg.

As usual, the Nordic Shorts section provides an ideal platform for a creative concentration of cinema, experiments, and discourse. The programme will highlight some new discoveries with a variety of cinematic approaches, honouring diversity, whether in politics or format. And let us not forget short film Saturday on November 7 in the Koki cinema – the perfect port of call for short film fans eager to meet the movie-makers.

With the six TV series in the 2026 Series section, which can be seen on the big screen as well as in the VoD programme, the NFL once again points up how the television format can open up a creative space for a variety of audio-visual forms and augmented storytelling.

The Immersion 360° section in the Infinity Dome will present work that sheds a spotlight on nature, ecologies, and environmental awareness. New voices will be heard from Lübeck University’s Labor für Immersive Medien, the animation class at Kassel University, and the Swedish Fulldome Shorts programme. In addition to audio-visual live performances and hybrid formats, this year marks the first time that Iceland is represented with a fulldome work.

Meanwhile, the 16th Lübeck Meetings once again tackle industry issues now and in the future, and provide a space for exchange and cross-border networking. Lübeck Meetings is not aimed only at industry visitors, the public is also invited to follow most of the events and take part in the discussions – whether about film, new storytelling forms, or developments. For the fourth time, the “Future North” programme will present projects by emerging directors from underrepresented regions of northern and northeastern Europe. Other ongoing subjects this year are TV series, sustainable production, and immersive media and creative XR. The German-Danish project “Borderland Film Talent Forum”, launched in 2025 to develop transnational short films, continues to grow, just like the 13th Lübeck Film Studies Colloquium, a cooperative venture between the Nordic Film Days and the Journal of Scandinavian Cinema. The new event Focus Nord will be an industry forum to discuss the planned 2027 value creation study, for which data will be collected during the 2026 Nordic Film Days.

Increased Accessibility

In addition to existing measures (including mobility aids, support with ticketing, and sensorily adapted screenings), the festival is widening its range of accessibility options. In 2026, this once again includes showing selected films with German subtitles for the deaf and hearing impaired (SDH), and screenings with audio description. In a new pilot project, assisted listening devices will be used in a cinema (KOLK 17) and the opening night ceremonies and prize gala will be subtitled live.

Press Material

Journalist can download programme information, show times, film stills, and festival photos at the website. You can request access by sending an e-mail to: presse@nordische-filmtage.de. News and photos will also be posted on Instagram and Facebook.

Press contact:

Hansestadt Lübeck - Nordic Film Days Lübeck

Nikola Mirza, Friederike Schön

presse@nordische-filmtage.de

+49 (0)451 122 1331

The 68^th Nordic Film Days Lübeck will run from November 4 – 8, 2026.

The Nordic Film Days Lübeck, first mounted in 1956, are among the film festivals with the longest tradition in the world. They are the only large-scale audience festival and important gathering spot for the German and European film industry that specialises in presenting films from the north and the northeast of the continent. The Nordic Film Days Lübeck is mounted by the Hanseatic City of Lübeck and supported by the state of Schleswig-Holstein, Creative Europe MEDIA, the Possehl Foundation, the Gemeinnützige Sparkassenstiftung (non-profit savings bank association), the Wessel Stiftungen, the non-profit Friends of the Nordic Film Days, and broadcaster NDR as media partner. Other supporters and sponsors of the 62nd Nordische Filmtage are Cinestar, Lübeck public utilities, STAWAG utilities Aachen AG, Sudden Death, Gradwerk, skanbo, Diakonie Nord Nord Ost, real estate society Trave, Convotis, tsj-architekten gmbh, Waldzimmer, Theater Lübeck, MOIN Film Fund, Kaufmannschaft zu Lübeck, Norwegian embassy, Die Gemeinnützige Foundation, Superkunstfestival, Ver.di, Lübeck Protestant church district, Baltic Films, Deutscher Verband Frau und Kultur e.V., von Keller Foundation, and the festival venues Cinestar Stadthalle and filmhaus, Kommunales Kino KOKI, KOLK 17, Theater Lübeck, InfinityDome, European Hansemuseum, Lübeck Academy of Music, and Lübeck cathedral.