'We are so different, but we are the same in many ways'

There’s a special connection between an Arctic film festival in Norway northern most tip and Monaghan.

Crossings Film Festival takes place in Vardø each autumn and recently concluded its fifth year bringing films across borders to the rural Scandinavian fishing town.

Vardø sits at the most northeastern part of Norway in Finnmark county. There’s no trees and the flat, rocky landscape is completely windswept.

It’s an “end of the road” place, that’s very dark in winter and very bright in the summer. It’s also a place Brona Keenan, who has Monaghan roots, calls home.

While completing her Master’s in Tromsø, she decided to visit Vardø and fell in love with the place.

“It’s very very strange when you say it, but I felt I had come home. I had no Norwegian connection or anything, I just felt right in the landscape, and that feeling has never gone.”

It reminded her of places she has lived previously; the north east of Scotland, rural Australia, Ballybay, and the United States. The people also encouraged her to stay.

“They’ve a really good sense of community and a really good witty sense of humour and are hardworking people in general. There were many things I connected with, and they also have incredible food.”

Being a fishing community for many years, she says people are “used to” people coming with “different ideas” and are “open”.

As part of their company Komafest, the idea of “waking things from coma” Brona and co-organiser Bertine Tønseth came up with the idea for Crossings.

“We decided that we wanted to prove to the people in Vardø that this little island of less than 2000 people has everything needed to make an international film festival,” says Norwegian woman Bertine.

“The slight flaw in this plan was that we had never run a film festival before and had no idea what to do in terms of ticketing, organising, films rights. We didn’t have a clue about any of the logistics of the film festival,” Brona adds.

Having lived in Ballybay, Brona contacted Clones Film Festival.

“Clones ended up acting as a mentor festival for us,” Brona describes.

An anthropologist and landscape architect by trade, while Bertine is a geographer and teacher, neither are admittedly “film people”.

“For us it was about trying to engage places which aren’t realised to try and see them in a different way and also highlight that they are vacant,” she says. “Clones suffers from high depopulation, like there’s many shopfronts with no activity going on, the same in Vardø.

“During our festival we re-engage lots of different places which aren’t being used, so we don’t use conventional cinemas.”

Bertine explains, they also aim to re-engage people in what can be an isolated community, quite literally at the edge of the world.

“Maybe they are not too interested in going to an exhibition or going to a screening, but they’d love a waffle in the morning, and would really love to help you put up a tent, or clear a shed, or lend a car, because this is a community project.

“It is about spending the time with people,” adds Brona.

They have used over fifty different cinemas in the municipality of Vardø, for example the outside of a fishing building, an abandoned electrical shop, a wall somewhere, or a lavvu which is a traditional tent.

“It’s about activating different spaces and activating different people.”

“The projectors aren’t professional projectors, but the venues aren’t professional cinemas. The only proper cinema showing we do is a Future Filmmakers [section] and that’s actually in the cinema.”

They screened around seventy films during their first festival in 2022, some of them by Irish film makers.

“We’ve continued showing around seventy films at every festival, including a variety of different genres, a variety of different lengths just the theme has to be crossings; geographical, mental, physical, whatever.”

A few years on, they now receive calls asking when the festival is coming back. For example, they received a call from the local playschool before the latest festival wondering when the kids could start creating poster ideas, which were later extracted for the official Crossings Film Festival posters.

Brona believes people are now “understanding and welcoming” this level of community engagement, and are “expecting” it each year.

“I love film absolutely but in one way the films are the least interesting part of our project.”

Meanwhile, Bertine describes how “anyone” can watch films which makes the festival “open” to all.

“They [films] are an excellent conversation starter,” she says.

This year’s festival took place from September 17-20 when Clones Film Festival members Shauna Kelly and Patrick McCabe visited as well as the Irish ambassador to Norway and Iceland Claire Buckley. Local screenings in Vardø this year included ‘Molly and the Robot’ by Monaghan filmmaker Táine King and ‘Resonance’ by Ben Goddard which was partly filmed at Clones round tower. This year’s winning film was ‘Robin In the Hood’ which is based in The Liberties in Dublin and is by Norwegian filmmaker Kristin Vollset. This film and other Norwegian films were also screened at this year’s Clones film festival which took place over the October Bank Holiday weekend.

“It is that exchange of ideas and experiences and inspiration which was part of the original contact with Siobhan [from Clones Film Festival] in the first place and that’s never disappeared. As this connection has grown with Clones Film Festival, I think we are aware of how much we can actually learn from each other because we are so different, but we are the same in many ways.”