Speakers
Fenar Ahmad
Film director
Fenar Ahmad made headlines with his debut feature ‘Flow’ (2014), which struck a chord with the Danish youth and also screened at the London Film Festival. Since then, Fenar has established himself as a both commercially and artistically viable director.
Born in 1981 in Czechoslovakia, Fenar Ahmad came to Denmark in 1986 as an Iraqi refugee. He graduated from the alternative Danish film school Super16 in 2010.
At Super16, he directed the short film 'Megaheavy' (2009), which was selected for the Berlinale Film Festival and screened at a large number of festivals. The film was honoured with a Danish Robert Award for best short fiction.
The cast of his debut feature ‘Flow’ featured emerging Danish rappers, and the film was praised as an authentic and accurate portrayal of the culture surrounding Copenhagen’s crime-stricken suburbs and struck a chord with the young Danish audience.
Following his debut, Ahmad went on to direct the revenge drama 'Darkland' (2017), which was a big commercial hit and was sold to multiple territories internationally. Then came 'Valhalla' (2019), and most recently ‘Darkland 2’ (2023) which also made it big at both box offices and among film critics.
It's quite rare that a Danish filmmaker, working on Danish budgets, succeeds in making genre films that look towards Hollywood for technical and artistic inspiration. But Fenar Ahmad has shown that a Danish film production can look and feel as something fresh out of Warner Bros.
Fenar Ahmad will present the session
Closing Session: Nordic and European productions at the cutting edge