Norwegian Film Institute

The Norwegian Film Institute (Norwegian: Norsk filminstitutt, NFI) is a Norwegian government agency headquartered in Oslo that supports and develops the Norwegian film industry. Founded in 1955, it functions as both a national film archive and an industry development body, making it the central institution for Norwegian cinema. The NFI represents Norway in several European and international film organizations and maintains a significant portion of its archival holdings in a high-security storage facility in Mo i Rana.

The Norwegian Film Institute was established on 3 May 1955 to support the development of Norwegian cinema and to house the national film archives. From 1989, it also assumed responsibility for promoting Norwegian films abroad, and from 1993 it began providing production assistance. The Oslo cinematheque was incorporated into the institute in 1994. A major restructuring occurred on 1 April 2008, when the Norwegian Film Fund, Norwegian Film Development, and Norwegian Film Commission were merged into the NFI under the Royal Norwegian Ministry of Culture, creating a consolidated body under the existing name. In 2020, the Norwegian Film Commission was separated from the institute and established as an independent agency, taking over responsibility for supporting international productions filming in Norway.

The NFI maintains extensive film archives that document Norwegian cinematic history. A large proportion of these holdings are preserved in a heavily secured bunker in Mo i Rana, a town in northern Norway chosen for its stable geological conditions suitable for long-term archival storage. The institute is a member of the International Federation of Film Archives (FIAF), the International Council of Educational Media, the European Film Academy, and Scandinavian Films. It also represents Norway in Eurimages, the Council of Europe's film funding body, and the European Audiovisual Observatory.

The Norwegian Film Institute is located in Oslo and operates as a government agency under the Royal Norwegian Ministry of Culture. Its primary role is to support and develop the Norwegian film industry through funding, promotion, and archival preservation. The institute maintains a website at nfi.no with information available in both Norwegian and English. The separation of the Norwegian Film Commission in 2020 clarified the NFI's focus on domestic film industry support, while the commission now handles international production incentives independently.