Swedish film festival to take place with just ONE person watching on an isolated island for a week

A Swedish nurse has won a competition to spend a week on an isolated island, watching the entire movie programme of Scandinavia’s largest film festival. 

Lisa Enroth, 41, was chosen from 12,000 film fans to enjoy the Goteborg Film Festival’s temporary cinema-for-one on the island of Hamneskar at Pater Noster – a former lighthouse turned boutique hotel, off the coast of Sweden.

Enroth, an emergency ward worker with a passion for film, said the isolation would give her ‘time to reflect and be alone’ after a busy year dealing with the Covid-19 pandemic. 

This year’s festival, which runs from January 29 to February 8, has taken coronavirus as its inspiration, exploring the social isolation brought about by the pandemic. 

The Isolated Cinema is only accessible by a small boat and is located at the very edge of an archipelago in one of western Sweden’s most barren and windswept locations. 

Enroth, who left for the island on Saturday, will have the option to watch the 70 films online in her accommodation or from the top of the island’s lighthouse where organisers have set up a small screen surrounded by a dramatic view.

Jonas Holmberg, the artistic director of the 44th Goteborg Film Festival, hopes the extreme viewing experience will prompt reflection on how the pandemic has affected people’s relationship with cinema.

‘During this pandemic, so many people have turned to cinema when in isolation,’ he said. 

‘But the pandemic has also changed how we experience films.’  

As with many events in the last year, the film festival has moved online as coronavirus restrictions ban public gatherings, but organisers have set up a real-time streaming platform accessible to people living in Sweden in a bid to replicate the collective viewing experience of a cinema. 

The Draken cinema – the festival’s traditional home – is making only one ticket available for each screening, though filmmakers, actors and producers may also appear to discuss their work. 

The festival’s opening gala saw the Swedish premiere of Tove, a 2020 biographical film about Finnish author and illustrator Tove Jansson, creator of the Moomins series. 

The movie’s director and lead actress walked the red carpet while those watching at home posted photos of themselves dressed up for the premiere and drinking champagne.

‘We want to encourage that and make it as much as a social experience as possible,’ artistic director Holmberg said.