Goteborg Film Festival Closes its 49th Edition with Record Attendance

Feb. 06, 2026

The 49th edition of the leading film festival in the Nordic region concluded on Sunday following ten days of film screenings, talks and events, with sold-out cinemas across Gothenburg, at selected venues around Sweden, and through the festival’s online screening platform.

The 2026 edition set a new attendance record for the festival. A total of 287,800 visits by 45,182 unique visitors were registered – a 15 per cent increase from last year’s edition.

Pia Lundberg, Artistic Director of Göteborg Film Festival said:

"At a time when there is talk of a crisis facing cinemas in Sweden, it has been wonderful to see festival audiences queueing around the block to get into screenings. We’re not seeing declining interest in cinema – on the contrary, we’re seeing strong demand for shared film experiences."

 

The festival also recorded a record year for accredited industry and press, with 2,600 accredited professionals from 50 countries. Of these, 1,370 delegates took part in the festival’s international markets, TV Drama Vision and Nordic Film Market, where 130 film and series projects were presented.

The 49th edition presented a wide-ranging program and attracted significant international participation. Guests included Honorary Dragon Award recipients Noomi Rapace and Agnieszka Holland, as well as the festival’s Honorary Chair Ruben Östlund, with Alicia Vikander delivering the opening address at the festival’s opening ceremony.

At Saturday’s Dragon Awards Gala, the winners of the festival’s competition sections were announced. The festival’s most prestigious prize, Dragon Award Best Nordic Film, was awarded to Maria Sødahl’s The Last Resort. Dragon Award Best Acting went to Adam Lundgren for his role in the festival’s opening film The Quiet Beekeeper, directed by Marcus Carlsson, which also received the Audience Dragon Award Best Nordic Film. Dragon Award Best Nordic Documentary was awarded to Iván Blanco’s Malandro Moon, while Maryam Touzani’s Calle Malaga won the audience’s vote for the Dragon Award Best International Film.

This year’s focus, Focus: Truth, explored how truth is portrayed, shaped and manipulated – in cinema and in society at large. Through films and panel discussions, the festival program examined what happens when truth is distorted or loses its significance in a time when the boundaries between fact and fiction are becoming increasingly blurry. Audiences were also invited to test their own relationship to truth through the initiative Truth Tickets, where festival tickets were offered to participants who passed a public lie detector test.

Preparations are now under way for the 2027 edition, when Göteborg Film Festival will celebrate its 50th anniversary.

Göteborg Film Festival 2026 at a glance

• 287,800 visits
• 45,182 unique visitors
• 266 films from 76 countries
• 723 screenings at 10 cinemas in Gothenburg
• Festival screenings at 45 cinemas across Sweden beyond Gothenburg
• In total, festival audiences spent the equivalent of 18.5 years inside cinema auditoriums at the festival