Sunday screening: Åpenbaringen (1977) + Long Road to the Director's chair (2025)

We highlight the artistic legacy of Vibeke Løkkeberg - a pioneering figure in Norwegian cinema - through two films that each stand as distinct artistic contributions to the women’s movement. Løkkeberg began her film career as a screenwriter and actor in Liv (1967), directed by her then husband Pål Løkkeberg. As Vibeke herself has stated, she sought to “move from object to subject” by taking the director’s chair.
Vibeke Løkkeberg’s body of work can be understood as a consistent and uncompromising feminist project. Throughout her career, she has examined how patriarchal structures shape women’s living conditions, particularly at the intersection of intimacy, labor, and artistic expression. Her films do not merely depict women’s experiences; they insist on conveying these experiences through female subjectivity. The result is a gallery of complex, contradictory, and at times unsettling female figures and lived realities. This is evident in both her fiction films and documentary work, where the private is understood as political, and everyday relationships function as sites of structural oppression.

19:00 – Åpenbaringen (The Revelation) (1977)

A social-realist portrait of a housewife, depicting the isolated and monotonous experiential world of Norwegian housewives in the 1970s - consisting of housework, sexual frustration, and boiled potatoes with brown sauce.
When the children move out, Inger is struck by loneliness and a loss of meaning. The film explores the consequences of defining one’s identity through others, and the accompanying sense of redundancy that emerges when one’s role as a mother comes to an end. When her husband sends her on a hotel stay to help her rediscover her zest for life, she meets a happy couple who help her regain a sense of purpose - but new challenges await her back home.
Åpenbaringen’s unpolished 1970s aesthetic - with skin, hair, and bodily excretions of all kinds - was heavy viewing for many Norwegians upon its release. Marie Takvam’s naked, middle-aged body caused a media stir. Dagbladet’s review, titled “No to Marie Takvam’s Butt,” sparked what came to be known as the “butt controversy,” reducing the film to a single sensational aspect. The same review included verbal assaults such as: “No, give me proper, full-on sleaze porn instead of this lurid intellectual whoring…”. What does Åpenbaringen reveal when viewed through today’s lens?
Running time: 1 hr 21 min

20:30 – The Long Road to the Director’s Chair (2025)

In 1973, Vibeke Løkkeberg documented the very first International Women’s Film Seminar at the Berlinale, capturing with striking precision how women film professionals are obstructed from dedicating themselves to cinema on their own terms. A film that should have become outdated - but, regrettably, has not.
Through conversations with women working in the film industry, Løkkeberg captured the spirit of feminist circles in the 1970s. The film foregrounds themes such as bodily autonomy, discrimination, invisibility, and sexualization. More than 50 years later, the footage is finally being screened for the first time. In a still male-dominated industry, many of the challenges remain disturbingly relevant. This cinematic time capsule, with its raw and direct form, presents authentic stories that laid the groundwork for a powerful narrative about women’s rights, equality, and creativity.
Running time: 1 hr 10 min

Year: 1977 + 2025
Venue: Storsalen
Director: Vibeke Løkkeberg
Country of origin: Norway

Duration: Total 2t 32min

Tickets purchased at the door
Film Club Member (NFK): 40 NOK
Non-Member: 100 NOK (includes Film Club membership in NFK + first screening free).
We also offer a Super Membership for 200 NOK. This provides Film Club membership in NFK and access to all screenings by the Studentersamfundet Film Club this semester.

The movies are shown in Norwegian

Doors: 18:45
Entrance: glass entrance