Hlynur Pálmason’s 'The Love That Remains' offered a contrasting case study as distributors at Haugesund unpacked what makes Nordic cinema travel — and what doesn’t Joachim Trier’s Cannes Grand Prix winner “Sentimental Value,” starring Renate Reinsve, Stellan Skarsgård and Elle Fanning, is providing independent distributors with a potent case study in how Nordic arthouse cinema can still break through internationally — when festival heat is matched with intensely local marketing. At a Europa Distribution panel held today during New Nordic Films in Haugesund, distributors from Taiwan, Romania, Czechia, France and Hungary unpacked the campaigns behind Trier’s film and Hlynur Pálmason’s “The Love That Remains,” revealing both the opportunities and limits of selling prestige Nordic cinema abroad. In Taiwan, Swallow Wings’ Albert Yao said “Sentimental Value” drew around 22,000 admissions during a run stretching from January to April, a strong result in a market where European arthouse titles compete not only with Hollywood but also Japanese animation, Korean cinema and local releases.
Swallow Wings timed the release for the awards-season peak and turned collectible artwork into one of the campaign’s central hooks. Different posters were rolled out across successive weeks, including Japanese artwork, a design focused on the film’s sisters and later U.S. and fan-created versions, while character bookmarks extended the strategy further. The scarcity itself became part of the appeal, encouraging moviegoers to attend early, return for later editions and share the collectibles online.
The approach tapped into a broader Taiwanese appetite for limited-edition theatrical merchandise and helped keep conversation around the film alive beyond opening weekend. Romania’s Bad Unicorn took a different route. Bianca Maria Roiu said demand was apparent months before release when the pic’s screenings at Les Films de Cannes à Bucarest sold out within minutes.
The distributor later mounted a “Joachim Trier Winter” retrospective across Bucharest, Cluj-Napoca and Timișoara, pairing “Sentimental Value” with “Oslo, August 31st” and “The Worst Person in the World.” The campaign extended through radio, bookstores, coffee shops, cinema advertising and Bucharest’s metro network. For a press screening attended by more than 200 guests, invitees were asked to bring objects that carried sentimental value for them, producing further social-media material around the pic’s central theme. Roiu also pointed to the film as something of a perfect storm: Bad Unicorn’s earlier “Armand” also starred Reinsve but struggled to attract audiences, while Golden Bear winner “Dreams” performed better without approaching Trier’s numbers.
Aerofilms reported an even stronger Czech run. Marketing lead Anna Rampa said the company positioned the feature around its ensemble, emotional accessibility and Scandinavian identity. An early Karlovy Vary showcase, attended by Skarsgård, helped build momentum ahead of the winter release.
The film ultimately drew roughly 36,000 admissions, outperforming Aerofilms’ result for “The Worst Person in the World.” But the discussion also underscored that prestige and a recognizable Nordic brand are no guarantee of commercial traction. Pálmason’s “The Love That Remains,” which premiered at Cannes, offered a more mixed case study. The film proved harder to scale commercially than Trier’s hit, but distributors repeatedly framed its performance against the particular economics of auteur cinema — and, in some territories, against Pálmason’s own previous releases.
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