Norwegian filmmaker Frøydis Fossli Moe sits down with Icelandic writer Jes Gíslason for Nordic Watchlist to talk about her creative journey, the projects that have defined her, and the experiences that continue to influence her work. Their conversation explores the path that led her into filmmaking, the inspirations behind her storytelling, and the ambitions shaping her next steps.

This interview continues Nordic Watchlist’s commitment to highlighting distinctive Nordic voices and the talent driving the region’s film and television scene.

Nordic Watchlist: Hello Frøydis, so to start with, can you tell us a bit about yourself?

Frøydis Fossli Moe: I am a Norwegian filmmaker and director. I’ve made too many short films—I think I’m around my 20th short film at the moment, or something like that. Most are fiction, and then I’ve done maybe ten documentaries. I’m now officially working on my second feature.

I think I was so hungry after I did my first master’s in film directing that I just wanted to keep making things and learning. So here we are, a couple of years later.

Nordic Watchlist: Amazing! Okay, this might be a cruel question, but do you have an absolute favourite of these 20?

Frøydis Fossli Moe: Oof. They all have to live their own lives, I guess. I think my documentary is my number one. Currently, my second one is Me to You, the one I think you might have seen.

Nordic Watchlist: I have seen it, yes! And I did like it. It was hard-hitting—very subtle, but it really touched on a lot of emotions.

Frøydis Fossli Moe: Thank you.

Nordic Watchlist: So, where did your love of film start?

Frøydis Fossli Moe: I started making films in third grade. I stole the family’s camera and used to run around making films in Final Cut, ripping off Charlie’s Angels and that kind of thing.
The films I made then had big explosions and everything, and I loved it. But I guess I didn’t take it seriously – I always thought it was just a weird hobby. It was a fun game to do with your friends.

Then I went to media college and focused on photography and film, but again, I still didn’t fully understand that this was a profession you could go into. My hobby just kept growing and growing to the point where I was overwhelmed by material and didn’t know how to finish what I started. I was trying to make this film with 17,000 files—it was overwhelming. These were things I had collected for years, but I didn’t have the knowledge to finish the film.

So I went to film school, to get basic understanding of storytelling and try to finish the film.

Nordic Watchlist: It makes sense — you kind of evolved into it.

Frøydis Fossli Moe: Yeah, basically. I feel like a Pokémon now. So yeah, it started as this natural thing. I didn’t realise that it was consuming my life and that it was becoming my actual job.

It’s weird thinking back on it, you know? I started in third grade, which means I’ve been making films most of my life now. I’m from the countryside — no one told me being a director is actually a job. How would I know? I watched films, but when I watched the credits, I didn’t connect or fully understand. These people in the credits were in a fairyland somewhere, and I was down on Earth.

It just felt very far away from my reality. It’s nice when that dream finally hits reality.

I think one doesn’t fully understand when it’s happening, because it takes years to build a career. It’s just gradually happening, and you don’t even know until you look back. Then you realise: “Oh shit, I did that.” It’s pretty insane.

Nordic Watchlist: Was London ever in the picture? Or did that happen naturally as well?

Frøydis Fossli Moe: I did my undergraduate degree in Norway in International Development Studies, and I travelled abroad three times while doing it. I went to Nicaragua for six months, then to Norwich in England for six months, and then to Pondicherry in India for six months. It was a wonderful course — every other semester you went somewhere new, and I got to know different continents and worlds.

I was overwhelmed with all this material, and I applied to my Master’s in Gender Studies in Bergen and a Master’s in Film Directing. I thought that if I did the master’s in Scotland, I could come back and do the other master’s the next year. But when I stepped on set, I knew that’s where I wanted to be.

But because of Brexit, it was a strange time in Scotland. This was right after the referendum, and there were racist men shouting in the streets—“Get out of my country”—that kind of thing. Racism felt very open, and everyone who was a foreigner had this collective understanding that it was time to leave.

So I didn’t stay in the UK because I felt unsafe. Then I was in Norway, and I read multiple reviews saying that my filmmaking wasn’t “Norwegian enough”. I felt misplaced, like no one was seeing my potential.

So I applied on a whim to the NFTS in Beaconsfield just to see if I could get in. It was a test for myself. When I got in, I was shocked — I didn’t think I would. It was a “curiosity killed the cat” situation, because when you get in, you usually don’t say no to the NFTS.

But I couldn’t afford to go, so I deferred for a year, took on five jobs, got scholarships, worked really hard, and then went the year after. It’s been a long, weird journey to get to London, but now I’m close to the end of my course. I’m graduating in March — very soon.

Nordic Watchlist: And are you going back to Norway after that, or staying?

Frøydis Fossli Moe: I want to get some co-productions off the ground I love writing here and talking to other creatives, so I’m hoping I can go between the two. We’ll see.

Nordic Watchlist: That would be fantastic — breaking down doors, creating new opportunities.

Frøydis Fossli Moe: Yeah, exactly. It’s also quite nice to be Norwegian now, because Joachim Trier and other directors have done a really good job for us, speaking on our behalf. England is quite interested in Nordic voices right now. So let’s hope that continues for the next few years.

Nordic Watchlist: Your films are either in Norwegian or English. What makes you decide which language to use? And how do you find the language affects the films you make?

Frøydis Fossli Moe: When I started school two years ago, I was nervous about the language barrier. I struggled for the first couple of films I made here.

There’s something about expressing yourself in your native language — it’s very different. You lose comedy first, and then cultural associations. You can’t say “remember that episode of—” and then realise no one has seen it. They don’t know what I mean when I mention the Norwegian Santa Claus.

Suddenly, you realise you’re culturally very different. But once I stopped overthinking it and let the project take me where it needed to go, everything was fine. The initial steps in a different language are tricky.

I do think I’m a better director in Norwegian than I am in English, but I’m slowly getting there.

Nordic Watchlist: What I’ve noticed in your films is that there are many different genres — monster fantasy, comedy, drama, and documentary. What’s your favourite genre?

Frøydis Fossli Moe: Oh, it’s drama — 100%. But comedy is where I’m at right now. It changes from project to project. I go through phases, and I don’t like to be boxed in. I’m trying hard to see how far I can push different genres and kinds of filmmaking to see what I want to bring into my feature films.

I use my shorts as tests. For example, FishEye, another film I made, was a one-take — I think 12 minutes — with an ensemble cast of maybe ten actors. I did that because I wanted to see if I could make a one-take work.

Nordic Watchlist: That sounds really cool.

Frøydis Fossli Moe: Yeah, it was wonderful. I made it at a university where I was hired as a film tutor. They handed me a bunch of actors and said, “Teach them film,” so I said, okay, let’s go. We made two shorts in two weeks. That’s how I approach shorts — exploring what I don’t know and testing things out.

I’m in a long-distance relationship in England right now, so with my short Me to You, I was intrigued by how different long-distance relationships work. I wanted to see her perspective and his perspective, so I thought I’d try a split screen — which is very technically challenging. It was tricky but fun. It’s probably the most difficult short fiction film I’ve ever made, even if it doesn’t look like it.

Nordic Watchlist: There were definitely shots where I thought, “How did she manage that?” Some of the compositions matched perfectly — people don’t realise how hard that is.

Frøydis Fossli Moe: That was insane planning. I learned so much. When it came to The Final Chapter, that was different — it’s my own life, a documentary, and very emotional. It’s the hardest film I’ve ever made emotionally.

Nordic Watchlist: Can you talk a little about film as therapy?

Frøydis Fossli Moe: Film is very therapeutic. I’m an honest person, so I don’t hold back. I never try to portray myself as someone I’m not — I don’t have the patience to pretend. My boyfriend always says, “You make films about things you haven’t experienced, because you’re intrigued by them and want to understand them.” I think he’s right.

I’ve been surrounded by people who’ve had broken hearts, but I’ve never had one myself. I wonder what it feels like. I get intrigued by these questions and make films about them.
The Final Chapter was different. I was making my first feature and was in post-production. I was exhausted, overworked, emotionally in a bad place, and saving money to go to the NFTS. I didn’t know how I felt — it was overwhelming.

So I called my DP, Mikkel Strøm, and said I might want to make a documentary to figure out how to express myself. I didn’t have the right words — I wanted to express it visually.

I got together with an amazing producer, and we were very patient. We didn’t film much, but when something happened, we filmed. There was no end goal except helping me express myself.

We had long conversations about how to visually express what I felt. I told Mikkel life felt like it was moving on without me, and I was standing still. So we agreed to shoot everything locked off, no camera movement. We shot everything on the same old Russian lens, giving it that feeling.

Documentaries just happen — you have to lean into it.

Frøydis Fossli Moe (cont.) : It is therapeutic. Even people who aren’t filmmakers — watching films, seeing emotions onscreen — it helps.

But I didn’t fully understand what I’d made until after it was done. I gave the material to one amazing editor and said, “Just play with it.” He made a wonderful edit. We had a test screening, and people said, “Add more drama,” “Do this.”

But my purpose wasn’t to follow story structure — it was to express what I went through. If I listened to everyone else, it wouldn’t be right.

It took months to understand what the film had become.

Then we got into Nordic Panorama. I went to the screening — no one was there. The lights were on, the sound was low, and it was just me in a library thinking, “Oh… this is it.” It was really sad.

But I was at the festival with another film — a fiction film — so I focused on that.

A couple of months later I got an email from The New York Times asking if they could distribute it. They had watched it at Nordic Panorama. My only audience there was The New York Times.

Nordic Watchlist: It’s not the quantity — it’s the person who sees it.

Frøydis Fossli Moe: Exactly. And I was about to turn them down because I didn’t want the exposure. I didn’t want it to pop up when you googled my name. It felt too personal.
Showing it at a festival feels manageable — an audience watches it and moves on. But having it online in one of the biggest newspapers in the world felt exposing.

I was overwhelmed and afraid. It took a lot of convincing — from my producer and, in the end, from my boyfriend, who is also the composer. He said I made something that resonates with people, and that I should share that. People are going through things. Maybe it could help them.

To this day, I haven’t read the comments online. I know there are around 400 comments, people sharing their own stories, but I haven’t dared to read them yet.

After it got into The New York Times, it took off on its own. Then we won the Bergen International Film Festival for Best Short Documentary.

We can’t wait to see Frøydis‘s future projects as she is clearly a talent to look for in the future – watch this space for further news on her work.