Scandinavia House

COLLECTIVE — NEW YORK BALTIC FILM FESTIVAL
2023-11-10 20:00 - 21:40 (America/New_York) | Scandinavia House, 58 Park Avenue, New York, NY, 10016, United States
The 6th Annual New York Baltic Film Festival (NYBFF) presented by Scandinavia House: The Nordic Center in America returns this November with the best new films from the Baltic region! This year’s lineup includes Collective (Kolektīvs, Lativa, 2023), a film anthology that revolves around the participants of the Latvian Song and Dance Festival, a cherished cultural tradition thriving in the Baltic states. The film will screen in-person at Scandinavia House on November 10 at 8 PM and virtually from November 11-19.
Drawing inspiration from real-life events, this anthology features six directors, chosen for their distinctively different artistic styles and body of work. Fervor (Degsme, dir. Aik Karapetian) crafts a mystical tale of sacrifice within a dance ensemble. Gaismas Pils (dir. Edgars Kaupers) presents a gripping and one-of-a-kind perspective on the historic events of 1985, focusing on the bravery of countless choir singers. The slightly farcical film Manwhore and Fish (Maukurs un zivs, dir. Papa Chi) challenges the tradition of choirs “buying” good voices, while Frolova’s Method (Frolovas metode, dir. Oskars Rupenheits) takes a delightful and humorous approach, exploring the quirky world of a young, nervous choir conductor with shaking hands. Pigs in Buckwheat (Cūkas driķos, dir. Marta Elīna Martinsone) offers a fresh and empathic view on what happens behind the scenes of the main dance concert, and the vibrant and colorful Latvian musical Kristīne (dir: Mārtiņš Grauds) paints a tale of jealousy and rivalry between two choir collectives.
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MACHINA FAUST — NEW YORK BALTIC FILM FESTIVAL
2023-11-10 18:00 - 19:30 | Scandinavia House, 58 Park Avenue, New York, NY, 10016, United States
The 6th Annual New York Baltic Film Festival (NYBFF) presented by Scandinavia House: The Nordic Center in America returns this November with the best new films from the Baltic region! This year’s lineup includes Kaupo Kruusiauk’s documentary Machina Faust, offering an unfiltered look at the life of Estonian composer, saxophonist and feminist Maria Faust. The film will screen in-person at Scandinavia House on November 10 at 6 PM and virtually from November 11-19.
Machina Faust delves into the whirlwind of composer and saxophonist Maria Faust’s unbridled creativity and fearless artistry, capturing her dynamic journey over the course of three years and highlighting the creation of works centered on women’s struggles, while also shedding light on her own complicated relationship with musician Ned Ferm. Despite her resilience and artistic accomplishments, Faust’s personal life is candidly laid bare, revealing her battles with trauma and domestic violence and the challenges she’s faced as a woman in the music industry. Faust’s openness about her experiences, including abuse and inequality, adds a powerful layer of authenticity to the film, while shedding light on societal hurdles that women continue to navigate.
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VIRTUAL SCREENINGS (MULTIPLE) — NEW YORK BALTIC FILM FESTIVAL
2023-11-10 08:00 - 23:30 | NY
The 6th Annual New York Baltic Film Festival (NYBFF) presented by Scandinavia House: The Nordic Center in America returns this November continuing its tradition of bringing the best new films from the Baltic region to New York audiences. The festival will once again take place in a hybrid festival with both in-person and virtual screenings. Virtual films in the festival will once again be available to viewers all across the U.S. via the Elevent streaming platform November 10-19.
Virtual screenings of all films will be available following their premieres at Scandinavia House, as well as two films screening online-only, and will remain available to stream through November 19.
VIRTUAL SCHEDULE
Beginning Friday, November 10
Melchior the Apothecary (Apteeker Melchior, dir. Elmo Nüganen, Estonia/Germany/Latvia/Lithuania, 2022)
Melchior the Apothecary: The Ghost (Apteeker Melchior. Viirastus, dir. Elmo Nüganen, Estonia/Germany/Latvia/Lithuania, 2022)
Beginning Saturday, November 11
Machina Faust (dir. Kaupo Kruusiauk, Estonia, 2023)
Collective (dir. Aik Karapetian, Edgars Kaupers, Papa Chi, Oskars Rupenheits, Marta Elīna Martinsone, Mārtiņš,Latvia, 2023)
Beginning Sunday, November 12
Melchior The Apothecary: The Executioner’s Daughter (Apteeker Melchior. Timuka tütar, dir. Elmo Nüganen, Estonia/Germany/Latvia/Lithuania, 2023)
Soviet Milk (Mātes piens, dir. Ināra Kolmane, Latvia/Belgium, 2023)
Beginning Monday, November 13
Crime Solving for Beginners — Full 7-episode season (Krimināllieta iesācējam, dir. Armands Zvirbulis, Latvia/Lithuania, 2022)
The Poet (Poetas, dir. Giedrius Tamoševičius & Vytautas V. Landsbergis, Lithuania, 2022)

SWEDISH INTERMEDIATE 1
2023-11-09 19:20 - 21:00, 2023-11-02 19:20 - 21:00, 2023-10-26 19:20 - 21:00 | Scandinavia House, 58 Park Avenue, New York, NY, 10016, United States
Learn the Nordic languages in classes offered at Scandinavia House! In this course held online only, the focus will be primarily on conversation. Students will discuss various subjects brought up in each chapter via the informative texts, with topics spanning subjects such as Swedish cultural and social life, wild animals, historical figures, politics, and others. The grammar is overall a comprehensive repetition of the beginner levels, while also introducing a few new things like reflexive pronouns, the present participle and the conditional. Students will be required to read assigned books over the course of the semester. Intermediate 1 runs over three semesters and can be taken in any order.
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WHAT WOULD YOU TAKE?
2023-11-09 18:30 - 20:30 | Scandinavia House, 58 Park Avenue, New York, NY, 10016, United States
On Thursday, November 9, 6th Annual New York Baltic Film Festival (NYBFF) will present a special evening in support of Ukraine. The program will feature a screening of the short documentary What Would You Take? (Mille Sina võtaksid, dir. Heilika Pikkov, Estonia, 2023, 23 min.), followed by a panel moderated by Andrew Horodysky (Ukrainian Institute of America) with director Heilika Pikkov, painter Lesia Khomenko, and Katherine Carl, and will conclude with a concert by Estonian musician Maria Faust.
Home. Your home. Your place. Your memories. Your belongings. In the blink of eye, it’s gone. Heilika Pikkov’s What Would You Take? tells the stories of 12 people from Ukraine who suddenly had to leave their home, taking only the bare essentials and a cherished belonging that speaks to their life.
After the screening, Andrew Horodysky will moderate a panel exploring how to support Ukrainian culture today. Estonian composer and saxophonist Maria Faust will end the evening with a performance.

SWEDISH ADVANCED BEGINNER 1
2023-11-09 18:10 - 19:10, 2023-11-07 20:00 - 21:00, 2023-11-02 18:10 - 19:10 | Scandinavia House, 58 Park Avenue, New York, NY, 10016, United States
Learn the Nordic languages in classes offered this winter at Scandinavia House! In this course held in-person at Scandinavia House and offered remotely via Zoom, students will continue to perfect their previous learned skills and pronunciation, while also expanding into more complex sentence structure. Furthermore, the students will be asked to express their opinions or beliefs in simple discussions related to Swedish life within the themes studied. The students will be required to read a literary book over the course of the semester.
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SWEDISH BEGINNER 2 — HYBRID LANGUAGE CLASSES
2023-11-08 19:50 - 20:50, 2023-11-06 18:10 - 19:10, 2023-11-01 19:50 - 20:50, 2023-10-30 18:10 - 19:10 | Scandinavia House, 58 Park Avenue, New York, NY, 10016, United States
Learn the Nordic languages in classes offered this winter at Scandinavia House! This course is for those who are still new to Swedish but perhaps have studied some on their own using apps or through other means. Students will have a basic knowledge of sentence structure, greetings, know their numbers, how to tell time and already possess a small but basic vocabulary. This semester the students will move beyond themselves and explore how to buy and order things, talk about what they do in their spare time, and read about an historical figure. Grammatically they will expand into other tenses and learn how adjectives and nouns inform each other. Various facets of Swedish life may be discussed during the course. This class will take place as hybrid learning on Mondays with classes offered at Scandinavia House and online via Zoom, and online-only on Wednesdays.
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NORWEGIAN 4 — HYBRID LANGUAGE CLASSES
2023-11-08 19:00 - 21:00 | Scandinavia House, 58 Park Avenue, New York, NY, 10016, United States
Learn the Nordic languages in classes offered this spring at Scandinavia House! Designed for intermediate learners who have taken Norwegian 3 or equivalent, this course continues to expand and refine your speaking, listening, reading, and writing skills, enabling grammatically correct conversations, and language structure. A stronger focus will be given to pronunciation, Norwegian structure, tone, and flow.
You will get the opportunity to hone in your knowledge of grammatical structures, thus engaging more confidently in conversations and discussions in class, expanding your vocabulary, and fine-tuning your listening skills. Students are actively encouraged to talk more in-depth about their own experiences in Norwegian.
There will also be weekly at-home assignments, and more, focusing on reading, writing, and grammar, as well as a strongly recommend end-of-semester presentation. Students are strongly encouraged to watch and read Norwegian news, and articles, watch Norwegian shows and movies, and listen to podcasts and audio books, as often as possible, on a weekly basis at a minimum. These classes are conducted in Norwegian, with the occasional English word/sentence.
Please note that in order to take this course, you should be comfortable using the simple past tense and present perfect, and have knowledge of regular and irregular verbs, as well as their irregularities and rules. You should also be able to use indefinite, definite, and plural forms of masculine, feminine, and neuter nouns; conjugate adjectives; and apply intermediate Norwegian sentence structure, including “inversion.”
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SWEDISH BEGINNER 1
2023-11-08 18:40 - 19:40, 2023-11-06 19:20 - 20:20, 2023-11-01 18:40 - 19:40, 2023-10-30 19:20 - 20:20 | Scandinavia House, 58 Park Avenue, New York, NY, 10016, United States
Learn the Nordic languages in classes offered at Scandinavia House! In this course held both in-person and as remote learning for those completely new to Swedish, students will learn the very basics of Swedish structure and pronunciation while also discussing cultural aspects of Swedish life. This class will take place as hybrid learning, with Monday sessions both online and in-person at Scandinavia House and Wednesday sessions online via Zoom.
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SOLD OUT: REMEMBER TO BLINK — NEW YORK BALTIC FILM FESTIVAL
2023-11-08 18:30 - 21:00 | Scandinavia House, 58 Park Avenue, New York, NY, 10016, United States
THIS EVENT IS NOW SOLD OUT.
The 6th Annual New York Baltic Film Festival (NYBFF) presented by Scandinavia House: The Nordic Center in America returns this November with the best new films from the Baltic region! In our Opening Night Celebration on November 8, see the North American Premiere of Remember to Blink, Austėja Urbaitė’s captivating drama exploring cultural conflicts amid the intricacies of human behavior.
Having adopted two Lithuanian children, French couple Leon (Arthur Igual) and Jacqueline (Anne Azoulay), who live in a beautiful house in the French mountains, enlist young Lithuanian student Gabriele (Dovile Kundrotaite) to serve as an interpreter and nanny. When the children arrive, however, their idyllic façade of their new family arrangement gives way to underlying tensions and cultural clashes — the couple might not be familiar with their adopted children’s origins, leading to conflicts and misunderstandings, and unearthing the complexities of parenthood and culture.
Director Austėja Urbaitė’s debut is a thought-provoking exploration of the subtle dynamics of what it means to become a family. The film skillfully unveils the characters’ multifaceted and irrational traits, weaving a tapestry of relationships that question the boundaries of culture and identity, and exposes a form of “Neo-colonialism” reflecting broader cultural conflicts. Urbaitė deftly employs unpredictability of her characters with nuanced performances to maintain viewer engagement, while cinematographer Julius Sičiūnas juxtaposes the serene natural surroundings with the mounting tension within the confined household.

NORWEGIAN 1 — HYBRID LANGUAGE CLASSES
2023-11-08 17:45 - 18:45, 2023-11-07 17:45 - 18:45, 2023-11-01 17:45 - 18:45, 2023-10-31 17:45 - 18:45 | NY
Learn the Nordic languages in classes offered this fall at Scandinavia House! In this beginner’s course, you will build your Norwegian vocabulary, pronunciation, and grammar skills, while also learning about Norwegian culture and life. By the course’s end, you should be able to conduct simple conversations in Norwegian.
You will get to practice conversations and reading in class, and there will be a focus on pronunciation, and Norwegian vowels and sounds, which may be new to your ear. Students are welcome to bring personal experiences, anecdotes, and facts about Norway into class discussions. There will also be at-home assignments focusing on reading, writing, and grammar, as well as an optional end-of-semester presentation.
Outside of class, students are encouraged to watch Norwegian shows, and movies, read simple text, and have Norwegian podcasts on in the background.
The required text will be provided via pdf, before the first class.
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NORWEGIAN 3 — HYBRID LANGUAGE CLASSES
2023-11-07 19:00 - 21:00 | Scandinavia House, 58 Park Avenue, New York, NY, 10016, United States
Learn the Nordic languages in classes offered this spring at Scandinavia House! In this intermediate-level course building upon Norwegian 2 (or its equivalent), all four core skill areas (listening, speaking, reading, and writing) are covered, with an emphasis on conversational Norwegian. Continue to expand your vocabulary and master grammatical structures, while enhancing your conversational abilities, and deepening your cultural knowledge of all things Norwegian, through study of themes related to daily life.
You will get to practice more in-depth conversations in class which will put your grammatical structures to the test, all the while building on your listening, and speaking skills. Focus will be given to pronunciation, Norwegian structure, tone, and flow. Students will have the opportunity to engage in discussion by bringing topics that interest them about Norway into class, including anecdotes, and personal experiences. There will also be weekly at-home assignments, and more, focusing on reading, writing, and grammar, as well as a recommend end-of-semester presentation.
Outside of class, students are encouraged to read Norwegian articles, listen to podcasts and/or audio books, and watch Norwegian shows and movies, weekly.
The required text will be provided via pdf, before the first class.
Enroll

SWEDISH ADVANCED INTERMEDIATE — HYBRID LANGUAGE CLASSES
2023-11-07 18:10 - 19:50 | Scandinavia House, 58 Park Avenue, New York, NY, 10016, United States
Learn the Nordic languages in classes offered at Scandinavia House! This course held both online and in-person at Scandinavia House is aimed for students who are slightly more advanced in Swedish, and are able to speak the language without too much effort, as well as easily read novels. Students will engage in conversation and discussions, and themes will be of a more philosophical nature, involving global questions and fiction. Grammatically, various structures and conjugations will be reviewed so students can refine their speech and writing. Students will be assigned a book to read during the semester.
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NORDIC BOOK CLUB ONLINE: A SYSTEM SO MAGNIFICENT IT IS BLINDING
2023-11-07 18:00 - 19:00 | NY
Read and discuss literature with our Nordic Book Club Online! On November 7, join us for a discussion of Swedish author Amanda Svensson’s A System So Magnificent It Is Blinding, a joyful family saga about free will, forgiveness and how we are all interconnected, longlisted for the International Booker Prize and out now in translation by Nichola Smalley.
On October 1989, a set of triplets is born, and it is this moment their father chooses to reveal his affair. Over two decades later, Sebastian is recruited to join a mysterious organization, the London Institute of Cognitive Science, where he meets Laura Kadinsky, a patient whose inability to see the world in three dimensions is not the only thing about her that intrigues him. Meanwhile, Clara has traveled to Easter Island to join a doomsday cult, and the third triplet, Matilda, is in Sweden, trying to escape from the color blue.
Then something happens that forces the triplets to reunite. Their mother calls with worrying news: their father has gone missing and she has something to tell them, a 25-year secret that will change all their lives…
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NINJABABY
2023-11-02 19:00 - 21:00 | Scandinavia House, 58 Park Avenue, New York, NY, 10016, United States
This fall at Scandinavia House, experience Nordic comedy at its darkest with “Svart Humor”! “If there’s a dead body in Denmark, someone is going to make a joke about it,” director Anders Jensen once said; Nordic comedies are as known for their deadpan, dry wit as for their occasionally noir subject matter, celebrating the “svart/sort” (dark) side of life’s hilarities.
The series concludes November 9 with “an uncompromisingly brilliant comedy about unwanted pregnancy,” Ninjababy (dir. Yngvild Sve Flikke, Norway, 2021)! Rakel (Kristine Kujath Thorp) discovers she is six months pregnant after a not-so-romantic one-night stand. At age 23, she is absolutely not ready to be a mother, but since abortion is no longer an option, adoption is the only answer.

Out of the drawings in her notebook, the Ninjababy — “who thinks it can just hide in there, have a good time and sneak out nine months later” — appears as an animated character, putting up a fight for his own future. Rakel has to navigate between what she thinks is best for herself and what’s best for the baby — but could it be the same thing?
Based on the comic novel “Fallteknikk” by Inga Sætre (who has also created the animation in the film) and winner of Best European Comedy at the 2021 European Film Awards and a Crystal Bear at the 2021 Berlin Film Festival, Ninjababy is a moving and fun film about growing up and the paradox of how unprepared one can be for pregnancy — even at one’s most fertile age.
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SOLD OUT: THE PROMISED LAND
2023-11-01 18:30 - 21:00 | Scandinavia House, 58 Park Avenue, New York, NY, 10016, United States
*THIS EVENT IS NOW SOLD OUT*
On November 1, join us for a special screening and film talk of the new epic The Promised Land, selected as Denmark’s contender for Best International Feature for the 2024 Academy Awards, with director Nikolaj Arcel and Mads Mikkelsen! Nikolaj Arcel and Mads Mikkelsen will hold a film talk and Q&A following the screening.
In 18th century Denmark, Captain Ludvig Kahlen (Mads Mikkelsen) — a proud, ambitious, but impoverished war hero — sets out to tame a vast, uninhabitable land on which seemingly nothing can grow. He seeks to start farming crops, build a colony in the name of the King, and gain a noble title for himself. This beautiful but forbidding area also happens to be under the rule of the merciless Frederik De Schinkel, a preening nobleman who realizes the threat Kahlen represents to his power. Struggling against the elements and local brigands, Kahlen is joined by a couple who has fled the clutches of the rapacious De Schinkel. As this group of misfits begins to build a small community in this inhospitable place, De Schinkel swears vengeance, and the confrontation between him and Kahlen promises to be as violent and intense as these two men. An official selection at Venice International Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival, and others, Niklaj Arcel’s (Oscar®-nominated for A Royal Affair) sweeping film has been hailed as “the kind of ravishing, rousing epic we don’t really get much of anymore” (Bilge Ebiri, New York Magazine).
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GALLERY TOUR: NARRATIVE THREADS WITH MARGRETHE AANESTAD
2023-11-01 17:30 - 18:00 | Scandinavia House, 58 Park Avenue, New York, NY, 10016, United States
Join us for a Guided Gallery Tour with artist Margrethe Aanestad of Narrative Threads! On view from October 14, 2023 to February 17, 2024 at Scandinavia House, this exhibition presents multi-media artwork by eight Nordic artists, each distinguished by their innovative use of natural, synthetic, and digital materials. Exploring Nordic craft traditions through a contemporary lens, the works in the exhibition engage with material experimentation and digital technology; textile design, ceramics, stitching, painting, audio recording, and assemblage unleash diverse narrative expressions and perspectives.
Guided Gallery Tours will take place one Wednesdays throughout the show’s run. In today’s special tour, Margrethe Aanestad, whose works are featured in Narrative Threads, will join Emily Stoddart, ASF’s Manager of Exhibitions & Community Programs, to speak about the artists in this exhibition and their works.
These free, 35-minute public tours meet in the Gallery elevator lobby. Gallery tours are subject to change; please check with the Scandinavia House front desk or email info@amscan.org.
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