Skip to main content

Sex

Panorama

This event has passed

Canadian Premiere

Two chimney sweeps, both happily partnered in heterosexual marriages, find their views on sexuality and gender challenged by a series of unexpected events. The company supervisor (Thorbjorn Harr) has a recurring dream where he’s seen as a woman. His employee (Jan Gunnar Roise), meanwhile, has a sexual encounter with a male client who casually propositions him after a job. Both events exert pressure on the men’s personal lives, but neither results in any sort of gay panic or masculine bravado—just a reflective, searching interest in heretofore unexplored aspects of their identity.

The first in a projected trilogy by Norwegian writer-director Dag Johan Haugerud, Sex—the other two films are to be titled Dreams and Love—is a frank exploration of normative social expectations in contemporary Oslo. Playfully structured as a series of sharply scripted two-hander conversations, the film is at once dryly humorous and unexpectedly poignant: a testament to the regions of experience that would open up, if only we would talk about them.

 

Ecumenical Jury Award, Berlin 2024

Director

Dag Johan Haugerud

Cast

Jan Gunnar Røise, Thorbjørn Harr, Siri Forberg, Birgitte Larsen

Credits
Country of Origin

Norway

Year

2024

Language

In Norwegian with English subtitles

Film Contact
Links
18+
125 min
Award Winners Comedy Drama Family Relations LGBTQIA2S+
Motlys

Book Tickets

This event has passed.

Credits

Producer

Yngve Sæther, Hege Hauff Hvattum

Screenwriter

Dag Johan Haugerud

Cinematography

Cecilie Semec

Editor

Jens Christian Fodstad

Production Design

Tuva Hølmebakk

Original Music

Peder Capjon Kjellsby

Dag Johan Haugerud headshot; Sex director

Dag Johan Haugerud

Dag Johan Haugerud (born 1964) is a screenwriter and director, known for his critically acclaimed novels, feature films, and short films. His feature film I Belong (2012) won the Amanda Award and the Canon Awards for Best Film, Director, Screenplay, and Supporting Actress (Laila Goody). He had a sweeping success with Beware of Children (2019) receiving the Dragon Award for Best Nordic Film and Actor (Henriette Steenstrup) at the Gothenburg Film Festival. Dag Johan Haugerud has also written several novels published by the Oktober publishing house and has created several critically acclaimed short films. Sex is the first film in the trilogy Sex Dreams Love to have its premiere.

Filmography: Thomas Hylland Eriksen og historien om origamijenta (2005); I Belong (2012); I’m the One You Want (2014); Barn (2019); The Light From the Chocolate Factory (2020)

Photo by Fin Serck Hansen

Missing VIFF? Check out what's playing at the VIFF Centre

The Life of Chuck

Dir. Mike Flanagan
111 min

The winner of the coveted Audience Award at TIFF last year, The Life of Chuck keeps us guessing about what it's up to and where it's going... Trust us, it's a keeper.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

The Graduate

Dir. Mike Nichols
106 min

In The Graduate Benjamin (Dustin Hoffman, 30 playing 20 with masterly understatement) comes home from college and is surprised to be seduced by the wife of his father's business partner, Mrs Robinson (Anne Bancroft).

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

blur: To the End

Dir. Toby L.
108 min

Now in their late 50s, Britpopsters blur (of Song 2 fame) do a celebratory lap of Great Britain culminating in their first ever Wembley Stadium show in this appealing observational doc. A companion piece to the concert film Live at Wembley Stadium.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

Midnight Cowboy

Dir. John Schlesinger
113 min

Jon Voight and Dustin Hoffman are street hustlers on different ends of the innocence / experience spectrum who establish something more than a business partnership in the seedy world of late 60s New York City in John Schlesinger's New Hollywood classic.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema

Sinners

Dir. Ryan Coogler
137 min

This year's unexpected box office sleeper is that rare beast, a genre movie full of bold invention and surprise. We are in Mississippi in the early 1930s, and the opening of a new blues joint on the edge of town is the signal for all hell to break out.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema

The Headless Woman

Dir. Lucrecia Martel
87 min

The pictures tell the story -- and you better not blink -- when Veronica (the superb Maria Onetto) hits something on the road home. But what? She is too traumatized, or panic-stricken, to go back and look, and her fears are too terrible to acknowledge.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre