Göteborg Film Festival Taps Noomi Rapace for Top Nordic Honor, Sets Mother Premiere

Swedish actor Noomi Rapace will receive the Nordic Honorary Dragon Award at the 49th Göteborg Film Festival, where she is also set to introduce the Nordic premiere of Mother, Teona Strugar Mitevska’s film in which Rapace plays Mother Teresa. The festival runs January 23 to February 1, 2026, and has positioned “Focus: Truth” as its central theme for the edition.

Festival artistic director Pia Lundberg said Rapace has captivated audiences through a career that moves across languages, genres, and continents, singling out her “fearless” screen presence. Organizers said Rapace will present Mother at Cinema Draken on January 27 alongside Mitevska, ahead of a January 28 ceremony at Stora Teatern where the award will be handed over after a second screening, followed by an onstage conversation moderated by Lundberg.

The festival will also mount a Rapace retrospective, with screenings that include The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2009), Beyond (2010) and Lamb (2021), framing her rise from Nordic breakthrough to international work. Mother premiered at the Venice Film Festival and is slated for a Swedish theatrical release in February 2026; the festival noted Swedish co-producers Rainy Days and Film i Väst.

On the industry side, producer and screenwriter James Schamus will appear as a special guest on January 28 during Nordic Film Market and TV Drama Vision, in a moderated conversation led by Wendy Mitchell. The festival said Schamus will also chair the Ingmar Bergman International Debut Award jury. Nordic Film Market runs January 28–30 and will relocate to Draken, a move organizers describe as part of a refreshed format meant to concentrate screenings, works-in-progress and financing conversations in one hub.

Göteborg’s programming team has tied its headline guests to a festival-wide push to interrogate truth on screen, pointing to the ways film can clarify reality, distort it, or turn it into persuasion—an argument Lundberg has linked to rising pressure on public trust and the spread of synthetic media.