Every year Olav's Festival and Kosmorama work together on a tailor-made programme for Prinsen cinema. The films which are shown during the festival week are thematically closely linked to the festival theme: transformation. All films start at 17.00 at Prinsen cinema.
Sunday 28. July
Amazing Grace (Alan Elliott, Sydney Pollack, 2018)
In the course of two evenings in 1972, Aretha Franklin (photo) raised the roof in New Temple Missionary Baptist Church in Los Angeles. The album from the concerts is still the all time best selling gospel album. But the documentary of the concert which Sydney Pollack planned to make was never completed. Not until now, almost 50 years later, can we finally experience Aretha's intensely personal, groundbreaking and musically powerful acheivement. «The film will make you feel that you have seen the face of God» (Rolling Stone).
The showing will be a preview. The regular Norwegian premiere of the film is in August.
Monday 29. July
The Reformist (Marie Skovgaard, 2019)
The female imam Sherin Khankan visited Olav's Festival in 2017. Now she is back again with a documentary film about her struggle for tolerance and female rights in Islam. It is a struggle against conservative forces within the religion and against growing Islamophobia in society in general. How far can Sherin Khankan go in her interpretation of the Koran? Sherom Khankan intoduces the film and there is a discussion afterwards.
Tuesday 30. July:
Keep Quiet (Joseph Martin og Sam Blair, 2018)
A powerful, thought-provoking documentary about the right-wing Hungarian populist and Holocaust denier Csanad Szegdi, whose life is turned upside down when his grandmother reveals that she is a Jew and has a past as a prisoner in Auschwitz.
Wednesday 31. July:
The accidental popstar (Igor Devold, 2015)
An experimental documentary about an unusual rock star, Helge Risa, known as the man with the harmonium and the gas mask in Kaisers Orchestra. The film relates how it is to be a kind of Christian oursider in a band which lives the rock dream.
Thursday 1. August:
Winter Light (Ingmar Bergman, 1962)
Why is God silent? That is one of the questions asked in the film Winter Light. The action takes place in the Swedish countryside, where Reverend Thomas Ericsson struggles with an increaslingly sparse congregation. Soon there will only be a few left, including a woman who is deeply in love with him.
Friday 2. August:
First Reformed (Paul Schrader, 2017)
«A shockingly good film ... Enhanced by one of Ethan Hawke's best character roles as the doubting, alcoholic minister of an old church which is celebrating an anniversary in a small American town ... First Reformed drills precisely and well into questions of faith and doubt, and whether commitment to the environment is an issue in which the Church and the minister ought to involve themselves.» (Adresseavisen, 20. Desember 2018)
Saturday 3. August:
L’Apparition / The Revelation (Xavier Giannoli, 2018)
An acclaimed journalist is sent to a village to investigate a 16-year-old orphan girl who claims to have seen the Virgin Mary. It is the Vatican which has given him the assignment, because a cult has already been created round the revelation, and pilgrims coming in flocks. «A little miracle of a film about faith and miracles.» (Politiken)
Olav's cinema is a collaboration betwenn Olav's Festival and Kosmorama.