Songs of Earth is a majestic symphony for the big screen. The film is an audio-visual composition of the earth’s primordial forces with our camera taking you from inside nature’s smallest components to outside the wild panoramas. The filmmaker’s father (85) is our guide. Bringing us through Norway’s most scenic valley, he grew up in and where generations have been living alongside nature to survive. The sounds of the earth harmonize together to make music in this breathtaking journey.

CREDITS

Contributors: Jørgen & Magnhild Mykløen 
Idea/Script: Margreth Olin
Director: Margreth Olin
Composer: Rebekka Karijord
Orchestra: London Contemporary Orchestra
Editor: Michal Leszczylowski 
Sound design: Tormod Ringnes 
Director of photography: Lars Erlend Tubaas Øymo 
Drone photographers: Herman Lersveen & Dag Asle Mykløen 
Wildlife photo: Torbjørn Martinsen, Ingebjørg Fyrileiv Guldvik, Baard & Guttorm Næss 
Sound: Andreas Lindberg Svensson
Producers: Speranza Film AS, Margreth Olin & Lena Faye-Lund Sandvik 
Co-producers: BBC and SWR in co-operation with ARTE
Executive producers: Wim Wenders & Liv Ullmann
World sales: Cinephil 
Distributor Norway: Norsk Filmdistribusjon
Distributor Sweden: Folkets Bio
Financiers: Norwegian Film Institute, SWR/ARTE, BBC, Nordisk Film & TV-fond, Norsk Filmdistribusjon, Speranza Film, The Fritt Ord Foundation, The Audio and Visual Fund, NRK, SVT, Folkets Bio, The Bergesen Foundation, WWF Norway

CPH:DOX PROGRAMMER ABOUT THE FILM

The mountainous landscapes of Norway provide the monumental backdrop for the cinematic nature experience of the year. A magnificent, existential journey with the filmmaker’s parents as its human yardstick, and with the primordial forces of the earth looming in the bedrock.

It does not get much bigger than ‘Songs of Earth’. Margreth Olin has created a stunning, cinematic work about life, death, nature and about simply being present in the world. With her native Norway’s dizzyingly beautiful mountain landscapes as its monumental backdrop, Olin embarks on an existential journey with her own ageing parents as the human yardstick out in the vast expanses. Here, their family has always lived side by side with nature. Even when the earth’s primordial forces have shown their most merciless side. Her parents’ love and lifelong loyalty bear quiet witness to how surroundings and inner space resonate with each other. But not even the most rock-solid mountain is unchanging – and certainly not in times like ours. The level of detail in Olin’s lyrical and visionary poem to her homeland is almost beyond anything seen on the big screen. And that is most definitely where ‘Songs of Earth’ should be experienced.

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