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In between an Adventist Church and a parish church belonging to the Church of Norway in the coastal town of Haugesund lies the Haugesund Public Library which proved the setting for the first major panel discussion at this year’s Haugesund Festival, which turned on Feminism and Religion. In this Christian-dominated environment, the conversation turned in part on a doc-feature, “Seyran Ateş: Sex, Revolution and Islam,” which screens at the festival.

The conversation was organized by the Norwegian Intl. Film Festival-Haugesund in collaboration with The Church Council and The Church of Norway. For context, recent studies report that the majority of Norwegians do not believe in God, but that most non-religious Norwegians – an estimated 70% – are still members of the Church of Norway, though only 2% of them regularly go to church.

Tonje Hardersen, the film festival’s program manager, told Variety that The Church of Norway has been regularly collaborating with...

Documentary explores the fight for female emancipation in the Middle East.

Prague-based sales agent Filmotor has boarded Samaher Alqadi’s feature documentary debut As I Want, which is set to play in competition at Cph:dox next week.

The film premiered in the Encounters section of the Berlinale last month and will receive its international debut in the F:act Competition of Copenhagen’s Cph:dox on April 22.

The documentary begins in 2013, during the second anniversary of the Egyptian revolution. Palestinian filmmaker Alqadi picked up her camera as a weapon against the explosion of sexual violence that was occurring on Cairo’s Tahrir...

Copenhagen-based Dr Sales has picked up world rights to the Faroe Islands-set coming-of-age documentary “Skál,” produced by established production outfit Made in Copenhagen. Variety has been given exclusive access to the international trailer.

Co-helmed by Danish-born Cecilie Debell (“My Mother Is Pink”) and Faroese debutant Marie Tórgarð, “Skál” marks the first time ever a documentary about the picturesque Faroe Islands, in the middle of the North Atlantic, has been given a main competition ticket at an A festival – Copenhagen’s Cph:Dox (April 21-May 12).

The film captures the search for identity and hunger for change among the younger generation of Faroese people, who feel suppressed by social norms and control, in a tight community of 53,000 souls where religion plays a major role.

For one and a half year, the co-directors have followed 21 year old Dania, brought up in a Christian community as she falls for hip hop artist and poet Trygvi,...

New York-based boutique distributor Juno Films has acquired North American rights to the intimate and compelling Norwegian documentary “Seyran Ates: Sex, Revolution and Islam,” featuring Turkish-German feminist lawyer and one of the first female imams in Europe. The deal was brokered by Dr Sales ahead of the film’s world premiere at the San Francisco Intl. Film Festival, running April 9-18.

The film brings together in front and behind the camera two strong female activists fighting for human rights, LGBTQ people and gender equality within Islam. Oslo-based Turkish/Norwegian helmer Nefise Özkal Lorentzen was nominated for the History Makers Award in New York City for her film “A Balloon for Allah,” and has been named one of the top 10 immigrant role models in Norway. The film’s main protagonist, Ates, founder of the liberal and LGBTQ-friendly Ibn Ruschd-Goethe mosque in Berlin, has been championing for years sexual revolution within Islam,...

American singer, songwriter David Byrne and Serbian conceptual and performance artist Marina Abramovic will be among the speakers taking part in live digital events at documentary film festival Cph:dox.

The Danish event has announced that it will extend its run by 10 days after the Danish government ruled that movie theaters could open on May 6. The main festival will now run April 21-May 12, with industry activities taking place April 23-30.

Byrne and Abramovic will appear as part of the discussion series “An Evening With.” Byrne stars in Spike Lee’s “American Utopia,” which screens during the festival’s program, and Abramovic’s film “512 Hours” will have its world premiere at Cph:dox.

Other speakers include German female imam Seyran Ates, who is portrayed in Nefise Özkal Lorentzen’s film “Sex, Revolution and Islam,” world premiering in competition at the festival. Ates will be in conversation with the Danish-Kurdish author Sara Omar focusing...