Cinema Esperanto #9: Northern Disco Lights [NO] 18++

Title: NORTHERN DISCO LIGHTS - The Rise and Rise of the Norwegian Dance Music
Director: Ben Davis
Cast: Annie, Bjørn Torske, Bill Brewster, Bryan Ferry, Hans-Peter Lindstrøm, Per Martinsen, Nemone, Pål Strangefruit Nyhus, Mikal Telle, Todd Terje, Prins Thomas, Rune Lindbaek
Genre: musical documentary
Duration: 1h 14m
Country: Norway, UK
Language: Norwegian & English, with Englis
Year: 2016

Cinema Esperanto wraps up its 2026 edition on November 13 with a special evening of film and music, organised with the support of the Royal Norwegian Embassy in Romania and Paper Vision, featuring a screening of ”Northern Disco Lights” to mark the documentary's 10th anniversary.

For this final Cinema Esperanto episode of the year, Control welcomes Bjørn Torske, one of the pioneering figures of Norwegian electronic music since the early 1990s and one of the artists featured in the documentary. He joins us for the screening before taking over the decks in the Front Room for a late-night DJ set. Get all details about the party.

Admission is free, embracing Cinema Esperanto's mission to create an open space for encounters with different languages, cultures, and cinematic perspectives.

Producer: Pete Jenkinson
Screening/Cinema Esperanto: Control (Berlin Room), starting 19.00h

Synopsis:

Northern Disco Lights tells the story of how a group of teenagers in Tromsø, a remote city above the Arctic Circle, helped shape a new direction in electronic music. What started as a small local scene in culturally isolated Northern Norway, before the internet, gradually developed into a global movement, leaving a musical legacy that changed a nation and influenced generations of producers and DJs worldwide.

Over the course of its 30-month production, the team travelled across Europe to interview 67 contributors, including Bryan Ferry, Bjørn Torske, Prins Thomas, DJ Strangefruit, Nemone (BBC 6 Music), Mental Overdrive, Idjut Boys, Lindstrøm, Annie, Bill Brewster, and many more.

Combining rare archival footage with personal stories and music, Northern Disco Lights explores the creativity, friendships, and cultural shifts behind the rise of Norwegian disco, showing how a shared passion for music can transform a place and reach far beyond its borders.

Special mentions:

Following its release, Northern Disco Lights was screened at more than 40 film and music festivals throughout 2016 and 2017, alongside special screening tours across the US, UK, and Germany. The documentary also received extensive international media coverage, with features in publications and outlets including Dazed & Confused, BBC Radio 6 Music, i-D, Vice, The Guardian, DJ Mag, Mixmag, and GQ.

TRAILER: Northern Disco Lights - Trailer [OV]

About Cinema Esperanto

Cinema Esperanto is a film screening series exploring multilingualism, cultural diversity, and different cinematic perspectives, presented at Control Club with the support of cultural institutes and partners.

Each screening is an invitation to inhabit other realities for a short while, to step into different ways of feeling, thinking, and making sense of the world.

Developed in collaboration with cultural institutes and partners, Cinema Esperanto takes shape as a shared experience, somewhere between a film screening, an encounter, and a space for dialogue.