At Film i Väst’s traditional press gathering in Cannes to launch current and upcoming productions, Kristina Börjeson, Head of Production, said despite the pandemic, Sweden’s leading film Fund in the Västra Götaland region, is enjoyed a busy year, with 15 productions and co-productions - films and TV series - shooting in 2021.

“We will continue to co-produce within the Nordics - which represents a big part of our activities, but also outside the Nordics, as we’ve witnessed many foreign producers looking for new and existing talents in the region,” she said.

Börjeson who took over from Peter Possne in January 2021, also mentioned that Film i Väst welcomed major runaway productions that had to relocate to Sweden due to Covid-19. Among them is Erik Poppe’s The Emigrants, now in post-production.

Upcoming major Swedish features currently filming in Western Sweden include Burn all my Letters by Björn Runge (The Wife) starring Bill Skarsgård, Asta Kamma August and Gustav Lindh, as well as Boy from Heaven by Tarik Saleh (The Nile Hilton Incident) starring Fares Fares. Meanwhile the Trine Dyrholm vehicle Margrete-Queen of the North is lined up for a fall premiere and Ruben Östlund’s Triangle of Sadness is in the editing room. “We hope for the film to be presented at Cannes in 2022,” said Börjeson.

Four Cannes selected features co-produced by Film i Väst were introduced at the Cannes press gathering by their respective directors: Joachim Trier’s The Worst Person in the World, Valdimar Jóhannsson’s Lamb, Eskil Vogt’s The Innocents and Jonas Carpignano’s A Chiara, which bagged the Directors’ Fortnight’s Europa Cinema Cannes label for Best European film.

Meanwhile the Swedish Film Institute unveiled three new features:

  • One Day This Will Be Yours by Andreas Öhman, produced by Markus Waltå, Eliza Jones, Gila Ulfung for Gran Slam Films (Pleasure), with support from Nordisk Film & TV Fond among others. The drama about family and an inheritance that no one wants, will start filming in the fall, with Karin Franz Körlof (The Wife, A Serious Game), Peter Haber (Beck) and Suzanne Reuter (The Restaurant, Agent Hamilton) in the title roles.
  • Madame Luna directed by Daniel Espinosa (Easy Money, Safe House) for Momento Film, is the story of a refugee smuggler, responsible for over a thousand deaths, who in turn becomes a victim of the global refugee crisis. (see separate story)
  • Regulars (working title) is directed by newcomer Måns Nyman, as part of the SFI’s Moving Sweden scheme. The episodic film with 30 characters, dealing with relationships from different perspectives, written with a rhyming dialogue by top Swedish rappers.

The Film i Väst-SFI conference at the Scandinavian terrace in Cannes was also the opportunity for the Göteborg Film Festival to introduce its new international Film Fund open to filmmakers from Brazil, Sudan, Ukraine and Kurdish cinema in Iran, Iraq, Syria and Turkey.

Backed by the Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, as part of the Swedish government’s ‘drive for democracy’, the SEK4 million (around €400,000) Göteborg Film Fund offers development, post-production and innovative distribution to feature films (fiction, documentary, animation) and series of high artistic level and democratic value.

In Cannes Fund Manager Camilla Larsson announced that three fiction projects had received SEK 350,000 each in post-production support: La Palisiada by Philip Sotnychenko, Ukraine; Rule 34 (Regra 34), by Julia Murat, Brazil; and The Rain Bride (Bûka Baranê) by Hussein Hassan, KRG-Iraq. Mirroring the need for such a support in these countries with unstable economic and political systems, over 1,000 projects had applied for support.

The Fund is now open for the Innovative distribution support, while the selection for development support will take place in September, alongside the second selection of post-production support projects.