STORY’s Female-led Megaheartz, Labor seduce sales agents

Stockholm and Gothenburg-based production house STORY has one of its strongest line up in years at CPH:DOX, with four Swedish films in competition. Two of them produced by Melissa Lindgren have just found international sales partners.

Emily Norling’s Megaheartz is a hybrid film about four women who desperately need to start over. There is Emma, who is obsessed about her former lover. Sofie, who holds onto a souvenir that ties her to the past. Jaquline, who bounces between rehab and The Grand Hotel. But there is also the director herself, who receives a phone call from her grandmother that forces her to revisit a house somewhere in the back of her memory.

“We were blown away by Emily’s debut All We Own (Guldbagge Best Newcomer 2020) and when she approached us with this film, we were just thrilled. She is a fantastic writer,” said Lindgren who feels the four distinctive intertwined stories that create a collective memory about a toxic relationship, are a perfect fit for CPH:DOX which privileges artistic films with an edge.

The film co-produced by Norway’s Twenty One Pictures, will be released in Norway by Aftenposten’s web service. The recently established sales company Split Screen based in Croatia boarded the project ahead of CPH:DOX.

Split Screen's festival manager Esma Sari said about the film: “Emily Nording's approach to the subject of breakups has been a refreshing insight into womanhood. As an often disregarded female topic, we were mesmerised by the personal and playful narrative with strong characters who shared their emotions on screen. It is rare these days to find a documentary in which personal emotional stories have universal impact, and this is a gem which proves this is still important, it still exists," she said.

Meanwhile the film Labor directed by Tove Pils, has tempted the California-based non-profit Film Collaborative, whose catalogue takes in the Oscar-nominated All that Breathes (Variety broke the news).
The story follows Hanna who is bored by the queer scene in her small Swedish hometown and moves to San Francisco to explore her sexuality.

Lindgren who went to film school with Pils, says the film was ten years in the making. “Tove has used amazing archive material from the sex industry in San Francisco on the verge of disappearing due to gentrification.“

The long-standing auteur-driven STORY headed by CEO Tobias Janson, also world premiered at CPH:DOX’ s New Vision programme, the film La société du spectacle. The screen adaptation of Guy Debord’s 1967 critical essay ‘La Société du Spectacle’, was co-directed by STORY’s co-founder Göran Hugo Olsson (The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975 , That Summer), with artist Roxy Farhat. “We have worked eight years on this film,” said Lindgren who praises the rich collaboration between archive doc expert Olsson and visual artist Farhat.

Oscar-nominated US based Joslyn Barnes (Louverture Films), Olsson’s long-time US collaborator was again involved in this film, as contributor to the original text adaptation. The film will premiere on SVT.

Meanwhile STORY’s documentary filmmaking talent Mia Engberg was also at CPH:DOX with the third film in her ‘Belleville’ trilogy Hypermoon, which screened in competition at Nordic:Dox after its world premiere in Göteborg.

“Mia has a true talent in treating personal stories, where fiction layers create free space for imagination and audience involvement,” said Janson.

The film will be released in Swedish cinema in September via TriArt, ahead of the television premiere on SVT in December.

Commenting on the state of doc financing, Janson said: “It is challenging and we strive to find new ways to finance our films and find audiences. What we’ve learnt over the years, is that we can’t do everything on our own. We need to work closely from development stage with co-financiers, co-producers [such as long-time Danish partners Final Cut for Real) and sale agents to define our goals.”