Photo: Grethe Nygaard, The Norwegian International Film Festival

We are proud and grateful that Liv Ullmann has accepted the role of High Patron for the Restauration memorial voyage. The emigrant ship will set sail from Stavanger to New York on July 4, 2025, as part of the national 200-year commemoration of the beginning of the great organized emigration from Norway to North America.

It will arrive on October 9, 2025, on the USA’s Leif Erikson Day in New York, where Liv Ullmann plans to be present to welcome us.

Liv Ullmann has been highly active in the Norwegian Refugee Council, with countless visits to refugee camps and disaster areas.

Since the 1970s, she has been deeply involved in the situation of women and children on the run, both as a UN ambassador and as a co-founder of the Women’s Refugee Commission, as well as an ambassador for UNICEF.

In 1825, Restauration sailed as the first organized emigrant ship to New York. Restauration will once again sail into New York, exactly 200 years later, on October 9, 2025, on the USA’s Leif Erikson Day.

The voyage is repeated to honor those who left in 1825, to give their descendants something to be proud of, and to offer an opportunity to reflect on those who are refugees today.