Olivier Guerpillon brings Sweden to Venice - prepares for CAR:Y

French born Guerpillon is the sole Swedish producer selected in Venice with the Lebanese film Costa Brava Lebanon and anthology documentary Isolation, which he co-directed.

Guerpillon has collected festival kudos for his productions Captain Achab, Locarno winner 2007, Cannes Critics’ Week Grown-Ups (2008), Sound of Noise (2010), Berlin’s Generation 14+’s Broken Hill Blues (2013). He also produced Baker Karim’s Glacier based on a script by Camilla Läckberg, which premiered on Viaplay and Swedish cinemas last April.

As writer/director, his short film In/out screened at over 20 festivals and his upcoming chiller CAR:Y was selected for the 2017 Nordic Genre Boost scheme, backed by Nordisk Film & TV Fond.
Guerpillon is now on the Lido with two films co-produced by his company Fox in the Snow, run with Frida Hallberg.

Isolation just world premiered at Giornate degli Autori. It’s a collective documentary of five 15-minute films in which top European directors draw a personal snapshot of Covid-19 and how it affected their respective country. The other directors are Michele Placido (Italy), Michael Winterbottom (UK), Jaco van Dormaël (Belgium) and Germany’s Julia von Heinz.

“I got involved in this Italian-initiative, through Norwegian producer Ingrid Lill Høgtun [Barentsfilm],” explained Guerpillon, who stressed that the project was kept under wrap until Venice’s official announcement.

The director anticipates his film contribution Liberty, Equality, Immunity, to raise controversy in Sweden. “I’m rather critical of the Swedish Covid strategy of ‘laissez-faire’ and Swedes don’t like when you move away from consensus [culture],” he said.

Meanwhile the buzzed about Costa Brava Lebanon by Mounia Akl starring Nadine Labaki (multi-awarded director of Caramel) and Saleh Bakri (Wajib, The Time that Remains) world premiered on Sunday at Orizzonti Extra. The story follows the free-spirited Badri family, who are seeking refuge in the utopic mountain home they have built to escape polluted Beirut. But unexpectedly, a garbage landfill is built right outside their fence, bringing the trash and corruption of a whole country to their doorstep.

“It’s a beautiful debut feature by an immense young talent and former Cinefondation attendee,” said Guerpillon who was approached at an early stage by Lebanese producers Myriam Sassine and Georges Schoucair of Abbout Productions. “The film was meant to feature a near future, but then reality has been catching up.”

The French/Swedish producer praises the team for bringing the film to fruition, despite the traumatic Beirut explosion and its aftermath, the country’s financial collapse, Covid-19’s restrictions and lockdown. The film is also one of the first Lebanese sustainable production, shot under a newly green shooting protocol.

On a financial standpoint, Costa Brava Lebanon was heavily backed by Scandinavian partners. The project won the 2019 Malmö Arab Film Days Pitch Award and then Norway’s Barentsfilm, and Denmark’s Snowglobe came on board. “We achieved a hat trick by gathering film funders from Sweden, Norway and Denmark,” said Guerpillon, citing the support from the Swedish Film Institute, Film i Skåne, the Danish Film Institute and Norwegian Film Institute’s Sør Fund. France’s Cinema De Factor, Spain’s Lastor Media joined in, as well as MK2 which handles sales, and the US’s Participant.

Top Scandinavian crew include composer Nathan Larson (Sthlm Requiem, Boys Don’t Cry, Little Fish), and joint-production designer Thomas Bremer (Dicte, Between Us). Folkets Bio will handle the Swedish release. The film has also been selected for Toronto’s Contemporary World Cinema competition.

Guerpillon will next direct for Fox in the Snow his long-gestated psychological horror CAR:Y, based on his own original script. It’s the story of a little dog robot, devised as a prototype to look after the elderly. As the dog starts to understand its ‘masters', its behaviour turns erratic and menacing. The director said he has lined up an A-list Scandinavian cast, to be announced at a later date.

Fox in the Snow also has several TV drama projects in development.