In 2017, the head of the Swedish Film Institute (SFI), Anna Serner, highlighted the distinct lack of ethnic diversity in Swedish film culture and signalled ambitions to ‘broaden representation, both behin and in front of the cameras’ (2017: 4). Echoing these sentiments, the Danish Film Institute (DFI) and the Norwegian Ministry of Culture (NFI) have outlined targets for ‘increasing cultural diversity and reaching new audiences’ (NFI 2018). These statements reflect the Nordic film industries’ aspiration to address the significant underrepresentation of black, Asian and minority ethnic voices in the creative sectors across the Nordic region.
However, themes of race and ethnicity have long-established patterns of representation on Nordic screens (see Wright, 1998, Gustafsson, 2014 and Sundholm, 2018). With no established industry voice or body overseeing representational diversity, as the above studies attest, cinematic depictions of diversity matter precisely because they largely offer the only insight into the way these themes are understood and construed.
