The Fritt Ord Foundation is a private non-profit foundation that seeks to promote freedom of expression, public debate, art and culture.
Welcome to a conversation with Sudanese political cartoonist Khalid Albaih and Ukrainian filmmaker Tetiana Khodakivska in Dag Erik Elgin’s exhibition BOMBA at the Skylight Halls of Kunstnernes Hus in Oslo on Thursday, December 12, 2024, from 6:00 PM to 8:00 PM.
Dokumentarfilmskaper Deeyah Khan startet sin karriere med å lage en dokumentar om en kvinne som ble utsatt for æresdrap. Filmen ble vendepunktet i hennes anvendelse av ytringsfriheten, sier hun. Khan er basert i London og jobber internasjonalt.
– Det som skiller Norge fra mange andre land, er evnen til å delta i konstruktiv offentlig dialog rundt vanskelige og ofte polariserende temaer. Samtidig kan vi bli flinkere til å inkludere et større mangfold og flere minoritetsstemmer, sier hun.
Intervjuet er på engelsk.
We refuse to be silenced.
That was the common message when six media outlets, journalists, and editors from Georgia, Azerbaijan, Ukraine, Russia, and Belarus received the Free Media Awards 2024 on September 17 at the Nobel Institute in Oslo.
– Threatening, attacking, kidnapping, and murdering journalists has become a war tactic, said documentary filmmaker Tonje Hessen Schei in her speech to the prize winners.
Is your master’s project about freedom of expression, social debate or journalism? If so, you can apply for a student grant from the Fritt Ord Foundation.
Graphic novels that address historical topics was this year’s focus among the 144 public libraries that responded to the Fritt Ord Foundation’s call for applications from libraries for 2024, "The History of History».
According to graphic art creators as well as librarians, graphic novels can recount history in new ways to new groups of readers. Forty-four libraries have been granted MNOK 2.6 to organise meetings on nonfictional prose, fiction and graphic novels. This is the largest amount since the calls for applications from libraries began in 2008.
Debate seminar at the Fritt Ord Foundation premises, Uranienborgveien 2, from 6-7.30 p.m. on Monday, 9 September
The Fritt Ord Foundation’s new application portal is now available.
The Fritt Ord Foundation is a private non-profit foundation that aspires to promote freedom of expression, public debate, art and culture. The projects that receive funding should benefit the Norwegian public and be accessible to all. In special cases, the Fritt Ord Foundation can help promote freedom of expression in other countries.
Graphic novels that address historical topics was the trend this year among the 144 public libraries that responded to the Fritt Ord Foundation’s call for applications from libraries for 2024, “The History of History”.
“The visual aspect of the graphic novels lends itself well to attract all kinds of lenders”, comments librarian Toril Å. Iversen.
A play that offers transparency on the topic of dementia. Comedian and writer Freddy Kjensmo has staged a performance about a topic not usually considered comical – the severe dementia affecting his father. He plays the leading character in a piece scheduled to be performed eight times in Eastern Norway in September.
Trønderdebatt is launching its fourth and final season of the debate project “Sentrumskontrollørene”, which reviews cities, towns and shopping centers in Trøndelag County as if they were cultural issues.
The Norwegian-Arabic social studies journal DER, based in Bergen, has been granted NOK 100 000 in support for three publications in April, August and December 2024, accompanied by a seven-minute podcast with each issue.
The theatre production “Made in China” by playwright, director and actor Espen Klouman Høiner will challenge the “Eurocentric view of China and the great and all-powerful ‘I’”. At the same time, it is an artistic reflection on a Chinese state system that increasingly uses its high-tech innovation to monitor and suppress its citizens – and that exports these methods.
Actress and stunt performer Nora Svalheim, composer and musician Åsmund Solberg and director Sullivan Lloyd Nordrum have received NOK 50 000 to stage the play “I am a Hedde”, which the three have developed together, focussing on the topics of exclusion and bullying.
The sign language theatre company Theatre Manu has been granted NOK 75 000 in funding for script development of a play about growing up deaf in the 1970s and not being allowed to use your hands to communicate. The working title is "Hands down ". The play is based on the story of actor Ronny Patrick Jacobsen (pictured). Marius Leknes Snekkevåg has written the script.
Director and playwright Toni Usman has been granted NOK 100 000 in funding for the theatre production “Death Penalty”, which will be staged next autumn. “Death Penalty” will be about Pakistan’s former Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto (1928-1979), who was deposed in a military coup and then executed on 4 April 1979.
In the summer of 2023, Ukrainian installation artist Maria Kulikovska from Crimea set up her installations from the exhibition “My Body is a Battlefield” in the currently empty premises of the yet-to-open Jøssingfjord Science Museum in Sokndal in Rogaland County.
‘Ukraine’s struggle for freedom’ at the Albin Upp Gallery in Oslo marks one year since a full-scale invasion was mounted on 24 February 2022.
The Ukrainian play ‘Imperium delendum est’ by Lesia Ukrainka Theater of Lviv will be performed in Oslo.
Polish Film Week is scheduled to take place in Moss on 26-27 August, Fredrikstad on 8-15 October, and Oslo on 20 October. This year marks the 10th anniversary of the festival, and this year Ukraine and Mexico are also included in the programme. “There will also be a Polish-Norwegian conference on the importance of culture in integration," states festival director Magdalena Tutka.
Over the years, Fritt Ord has worked to strengthen the position of documentary photography through special calls for applications for funding, providing ongoing support for photo books and exhibitions, and establishing projects like The Norwegian Journal of Photography.
Fritt Ord has launched various initiatives related to the communication of knowledge and the promotion of literature, including an annual subsidy scheme earmarked for Norwegian public libraries. In 2005, the Foundation took the initiative to establish Norway’s first house of literature and, in 2010, to ensure the further operation of Store norske leksikon.
Since its inception, Fritt Ord has had media and journalism as one of its core target areas. In today’s demanding media situation, the Foundation has set up separate grant and subsidy schemes for journalists and critics.
Fritt Ord offers grants for students working on master’s theses or on documentary films in fields such as human rights, journalism, freedom of expression and democracy building. It also hosts the Fritt Ord Foundation Competition for Upper Secondary Schools and the Norwegian Historical Society’s competition for pupils.
Fritt Ord takes part in a number of joint projects outside the borders of Norway, primarily related to freedom of the press, democracy building and the strengthening of organisations of civil society.
Fritt Ord has taken the initiative for several research projects on freedom of expression that have been conducted by various Norwegian research communities. Among other things, the studies have examined social norms and political tolerance in respect of statements, online harassment and polarisation, artistic freedom of expression and freedom of expression in the workplace.
Books and reports published by the Fritt Ord Foundation, alone or with partners.
