The Swedish film developed at Nordic Genre Boost will screen at Un Certain Regard. Films Boutique handles world sales. 

Iranian born Danish director Ali Abbasi who made his debut with the horror film Shelley, selected at Berlin’s Panorama 2016, will attend the world’s most prestigious film festival with his second feature Border (Gräns) that he co-wrote with Isabella Eklöf, together with novelist John Ajvide Lindqvist (Let the Right One In) from the latter's short story.

The film is produced by Nina Bisgaard, Piodor Gustafsson and Petra Jönsson for Meta Film Stockholm, Spark Film & TV & Kärnfilm, in coproduction with Meta Film Denmark, together with Film i Väst, SVT, Copenhagen Film Fund, with production support from the Swedish Film Institute and Nordisk Film & TV Fond.

Petri Kemppinen, CEO at Nordisk Film & TV Fond said: “Border is very special for us as normally we do top-financing only but in this case we have followed it from the first fumbling steps as Nina and Ali participated with the script in our first Nordic Genre Boost workshop exactly three years ago in Helsinki. Huge congratulations to the team, it will be so exciting to see the completed film in Cannes.”

In the film actress Eva Melander (Flocking, Rebecka Martinsson) plays a customs officer who develops a strange attraction to the suspect she’s investigating. The case’s revelations soon call into question her entire existence. The suspect is played by Eero Milonoff (The Happiest Day in the Life of Olli Mäki).

“Border is a film about finding your place in the world, and not really knowing who you are and where you belong,” said Abbasi. You might also see it as a story about how the Western world treats people who deviate from the norm, so there is a political element to it. In Border, ancient natural mysticism is mixed with everyday life, and it’s the clash between those two elements that is the film’s universe, just like in Let the Right One In. I would describe my style as a Nordic form of magical realism,” said the director.

Tri Art will release Border in the fall in Sweden.

A total of 18 films – out of 20 - competing for the Palme d’or were announced yesterday, including the latest works by Jean-Luc Godard (Le livre d’image), Matteo Garrone (Dogman), Spike Lee (Blackkklansman), Pawel Pawlikowski (Cold War), Kore-Eda Hirokazu (Ash). The opening film is Asghar Farhadi’s Everybody Knows.

Two event films are out of competition - Ron Howard’s Solo-A Star Wars Story and Gilles Lellouche’s Le grand Bain, two titles are Midnight Screenings (Arctic by Joe Penna and Gongjack by Yoon Jong-Bing) and 16 films will screen at Un Certain Regard.

The Jury president for the official competition is Cate Blanchett and Benicio del Toro is jury president for Un Certain Regard. The festival unspools May 8-19, 2018.