Behind the Scenes: Noordelijk Film Festival | A College Tour with artistic director Henriëtte Poelman

The University of Groningen’s Film Studies programme is pleased to welcome Henriëtte Poelman, Artistic Director of the Noordelijk Film Festival, for an in-depth College Tour–style conversation on the role of regional film festivals in shaping film history.

Regional festivals do far more than screen films — they shape which stories enter the public imagination, which voices are preserved, and how regional identities come to matter in film history. In this conversation, Henriëtte Poelman will reflect on how the Noordelijk Film Festival negotiates identity, memory, and historical visibility through its curatorial and organisational choices.

The session will explore three key themes:

1. Defining “the Northern”: Identity, Region, and Sensibility
What does “northern” signify in the context of cinema? How does the festival balance local specificity with international scope, and how does “the North” function as both a cultural identity and a curatorial lens?

2. The Festival as Archive and Cultural Memory
Focusing on the festival’s minority-language section and its retrospectives, we will examine how Noordelijk acts as a form of cultural memory — preserving regional voices, recovering overlooked films, and writing parallel histories of Dutch cinema.

3. Curatorial Agency and Historical Intervention
How do regional festivals intervene in film history through programming choices, partnerships, and support for filmmakers outside dominant funding structures? How does Noordelijk shape what audiences come to regard as historically significant?

The evening will begin with a screening of ÁHKUIN (2024, 19 min), an experimental short deeply rooted in Sámi storytelling traditions and Indigenous knowledge — a powerful example of how regional cinema intersects with the archive.

This event is free and open to all. No registration is required.