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Northern Lights
Catalog Number
A86520
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Primary Distributor (If not listed, select "OTHER")
Catalog Number
A86520
Primary Distributor (If not listed, select "OTHER")
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Northern Lights (1978)
Additional Information
Additional Information
Northern Lights was a 1978 independent film which dramatizes the founding of the Nonpartisan League in North Dakota, a Populist political movement which took place in the American Midwest in the early 1900s. [1]
The film was produced, directed, written and edited by John Hanson and Rob Nilsson, and starred Joe Spano, Robert Behlen, Sue Lynch and Michel Wagner. It was filmed on location in North Dakota, during the fall and winter of 1977, and utilized many locals as extras.
Due to the extreme cold winter weather, with temperatures reaching as low as -40, many of the outdoor scenes had to be shot in short bursts, as cameras and other equipment would only function for a short time, before freezing up.
The film was awarded the Caméra d'Or at the 1980 Cannes Film Festival for best first feature film (defined as "the first feature film for theatrical screening (whatever the format; fiction, documentary or animation) of 60 minutes or more in length, by a director who has not made another film of 60 minutes or more in length and released theatrically."[2]
Reviewed on 11/9/2006
Beautifully filmed in black and white, NORTHERN LIGHTS takes place in the early 1900's in North Dakota. Independent filmmakers, John Hanson and Rob Nilsson begin the film at dinner, which is so real I could almost taste the gravy. The film seems more like a documentary about farming during those hard times than about the melodrama in their lives. Most of the actors are real farmers. The struggle against drought and hard winters makes it difficult to make farming profitable. When they can't sell their grain for fair prices, they form a union so as not to lose their farms to the banks. This union is more important than the one that develops between a farmer and his future wife, on which a Hollywood script would focus. See this in the summer. The winter harvesting scenes are filmed to make us feel the cold, too. Norwegian and English is spoken intermittently.
In 1915 North Dakota, Swedish-born farmer Ray Sorenson (Robert Behling) organizes the populist Nonpartisan League as a response to the bank foreclosures that threaten the livelihoods of himself and his neighbors.
Release Date: August 27, 1980
Distrib: New Front Films
The film was produced, directed, written and edited by John Hanson and Rob Nilsson, and starred Joe Spano, Robert Behlen, Sue Lynch and Michel Wagner. It was filmed on location in North Dakota, during the fall and winter of 1977, and utilized many locals as extras.
Due to the extreme cold winter weather, with temperatures reaching as low as -40, many of the outdoor scenes had to be shot in short bursts, as cameras and other equipment would only function for a short time, before freezing up.
The film was awarded the Caméra d'Or at the 1980 Cannes Film Festival for best first feature film (defined as "the first feature film for theatrical screening (whatever the format; fiction, documentary or animation) of 60 minutes or more in length, by a director who has not made another film of 60 minutes or more in length and released theatrically."[2]
Reviewed on 11/9/2006
Beautifully filmed in black and white, NORTHERN LIGHTS takes place in the early 1900's in North Dakota. Independent filmmakers, John Hanson and Rob Nilsson begin the film at dinner, which is so real I could almost taste the gravy. The film seems more like a documentary about farming during those hard times than about the melodrama in their lives. Most of the actors are real farmers. The struggle against drought and hard winters makes it difficult to make farming profitable. When they can't sell their grain for fair prices, they form a union so as not to lose their farms to the banks. This union is more important than the one that develops between a farmer and his future wife, on which a Hollywood script would focus. See this in the summer. The winter harvesting scenes are filmed to make us feel the cold, too. Norwegian and English is spoken intermittently.
In 1915 North Dakota, Swedish-born farmer Ray Sorenson (Robert Behling) organizes the populist Nonpartisan League as a response to the bank foreclosures that threaten the livelihoods of himself and his neighbors.
Release Date: August 27, 1980
Distrib: New Front Films
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