Northern Lights (1978 film)

Last updated

Northern Lights
Directed by John Hanson
Rob Nilsson
Produced by Rob Nilsson
John Hanson
Starring Robert Behling
Susan Lynch
Joe Spano
Cinematography Judy Irola
Music by Ozzie Ahlers
Release date
  • July 12, 1978 (1978-07-12)
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish

Northern Lights is a 1978 independent film that dramatizes the founding of the Nonpartisan League in North Dakota, a populist political movement in the American Midwest in the early 1900s. [1] [2]

Contents

Production

The film was produced, directed, written and edited by John Hanson and Rob Nilsson, and starred Joe Spano, Robert Behling, Susan Lynch and Michel Wagner. It was filmed on location in North Dakota during the fall and winter of 1977, and used many locals as extras. [3]

The filmmakers filmed in grainy black-and-white 16mm as a conscious rejection of Hollywood production values, and about a third of the dialogue is in Norwegian. Judy Irola's cinematography has been compared favorably to Days of Heaven . [3]

Due to the extreme cold winter weather, with temperatures reaching as low as –40, many of the outdoor scenes had to be shot in short bursts, as cameras and other equipment only functioned for a short time before freezing up.

Accolades

The film was awarded the Caméra d'Or at the 1979 Cannes Film Festival for best first feature film (defined as "the first feature film for theatrical screening (whatever the format; fiction, documentary or animation) of 60 minutes or more in length, by a director who has not made another film of 60 minutes or more in length and released theatrically." [4]

See also

Related Research Articles

Super 8 film Small film format by Kodak

Super 8 mm film is a motion-picture film format released in 1965 by Eastman Kodak as an improvement over the older "Double" or "Regular" 8 mm home movie format.

Cannes Film Festival Annual film festival held in Cannes, France

The Cannes Festival, until 2003 called the International Film Festival and known in English as the Cannes Film Festival, is an annual film festival held in Cannes, France, which previews new films of all genres, including documentaries, from all around the world. Founded in 1946, the invitation-only festival is held annually at the Palais des Festivals et des Congrès. The festival was formally accredited by the FIAPF in 1951.

Paul Morrissey American film director (born 1938)

Paul Morrissey is an American film director, best known for his association with Andy Warhol. He was also director of the first film in which a transgender actress, Holly Woodlawn, starred as a girlfriend of the main character played by Joe Dallesandro in Trash (1970).

<i>Ten Minutes Older</i> 2002 anthology film

Ten Minutes Older is a 2002 film project consisting of two compilation feature films titled The Trumpet and The Cello. The project was conceived by the producer Nicolas McClintock as a reflection on the theme of time at the turn of the Millennium. Fifteen celebrated filmmakers were invited to create their own vision of what time means in ten minutes of film. The music for the compilations was composed by Paul Englishby, and performed by Hugh Masekela (trumpet) and Claudio Bohorques (cello).

Nonpartisan League Political organization in North Dakota

The Nonpartisan League (NPL) was a left-wing political party founded in 1915 in North Dakota by Arthur C. Townley, a former organizer for the Socialist Party of America. On behalf of small farmers and merchants, the Nonpartisan League advocated state control of mills, grain elevators, banks and other farm-related industries in order to reduce the power of corporate and political interests from Minneapolis and Chicago.

John Hanson (director) American movie director and cinematographer

John Hanson is an American movie director and cinematographer.

Jack Cardiff British cinematographer, director and photographer (1914–2009)

Jack Cardiff, was a British cinematographer, film and television director, and photographer. His career spanned the development of cinema, from silent film, through early experiments in Technicolor, to filmmaking more than half a century later.

Andrea Arnold English film director and actor

Andrea Arnold, OBE is an English filmmaker and former actor. She won an Academy Award for her short film Wasp in 2005. Her feature films include Red Road (2006), Fish Tank (2009), and American Honey (2016), all of which have won the Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival. Arnold has also directed four episodes of the Amazon Prime Video series Transparent, as well as all seven episodes of the second season of the HBO series Big Little Lies. Her documentary Cow premiered at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival and played at the 2021 Telluride Film Festival.

Ruy Guerra Brazilian-Mozambican film director and actor

Ruy Alexandre Guerra Coelho Pereira is a Portuguese-Brazilian film director and screenwriter. Guerra was born a Portuguese citizen in Lourenço Marques in Mozambique, when it was still a Portuguese colony.

Rob Nilsson American filmmaker

Rob Nilsson is a filmmaker, poet, and painter, best known for his feature film Northern Lights, co-directed with John Hanson and winner of the Camera d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival (1979). He also is known for directing and playing the lead role in Heat and Sunlight, produced by Steve and Hildy Burns, also featuring Consuelo Faust, Don Bajema and Ernie Fosseliius. Heat and Sunlight won the Grand Jury Prize Dramatic at the Sundance Film Festival in 1988, and his 9 @ Night Film Cycle won the 2008 San Francisco Film Critics Circle Marlon Riggs Award for Courage and Vision in Cinema. Nilsson has also received Lifetime Achievement awards from the Fargo International Film Festival, the St. Louis International Film Festival, the Kansas City Filmmaker's Jubilee, the Master's Award from the Golden Apricot Film Festival, a Filmmaker of the Year Award from the Silver Lake Film Festival, and the Milley Award from the city of Mill Valley for accomplishment in the Arts.

<span title="French-language text"><i lang="fr">Caméra dOr</i></span> Award

The Caméra d'Or is an award of the Cannes Film Festival for the best first feature film presented in one of the Cannes' selections . The prize, created in 1978 by Gilles Jacob, is awarded during the Festival's Closing Ceremony by an independent jury.

Corneliu Porumboiu Romanian film director, screenwriter and producer

Corneliu Porumboiu is a Romanian film director, screenwriter, and film producer.

Christoffer Boe is a Danish film director and screenwriter. He is an established and well-known not only in Denmark, but all through the world. Among his international awards there are FIPRESCI Director of the Year at San Sebastián International Film Festival and Golden Camera at Cannes Film Festival in 2003. He is also co-founder and director of the film production company AlphaVille Pictures Copenhagen.

1979 Cannes Film Festival The 32nd Cannes Film Festival

The 32nd Cannes Film Festival was held from 10 to 24 May 1979. The Palme d'Or went to Apocalypse Now by Francis Ford Coppola, which was screened as a work in progress, and Die Blechtrommel by Volker Schlöndorff.

George Kaczender was a Hungarian-born Canadian film director. He directed 26 films between 1963 and 2001.

Cinema of Haiti Filmmaking in Haiti

The historiography of Haitian cinema is very limited. It consists only one double issue of the journal of the French Institute of Haiti Conjonction, released in 1983, devoted to film; a book by Arnold Antonin, published during the same year, entitled Matériel pour une préhistoire du cinéma haïtien ; and an article by the same author in the 1981 book Cinéma de l’Amérique latine by Guy Hennebel and Alfonso Gumucio Dagrón.

2012 Cannes Film Festival Film festival

The 65th Cannes Film Festival was held from 16 to 27 May 2012. Italian film director Nanni Moretti was the President of the Jury for the main competition and British actor Tim Roth was the President of the Jury for the Un Certain Regard section. French actress Bérénice Bejo hosted the opening and closing ceremonies.

2014 Cannes Film Festival Film festival

The 67th Cannes Film Festival was held from 14 to 25 May 2014. New Zealand film director Jane Campion was the head of the jury for the main competition section. The Palme d'Or was awarded to the Turkish film Winter Sleep directed by Nuri Bilge Ceylan.

Frank Pavich is a Croatian-American film director and producer.

Judy Irola American cinematographer (1943–2021)

Judy Carol Irola was an American cinematographer, film producer, and director. The third woman accepted into the American Society of Cinematographers, she was head of the cinematography department at USC School of Cinematic Arts for 15 years and held the Conrad Hall Chair in Cinematography there. Irola co-founded a National Association of Broadcast Employees and Technicians branch in San Francisco in 1969, and was a founding member of the short-lived Cine Manifest film collective in 1972.

References

  1. "Movie Review - Northern Lights - Film: 'Northern Lights,' Story of Early Labor Wars:A Look at Long Ago - NYTimes.com". New York Times. Retrieved March 20, 2021.
  2. The Public Cinema
  3. 1 2 Durkin, Tim (May 15, 1980). "From the People of North Dakota - Straight Talk About Politics - The Lansing Star". The Lansing Star. JSTOR   28039010.
  4. Caméra d'Or Rules & Regulations 2011 Archived 2012-08-11 at the Wayback Machine .
  5. The Paley Center for Media