Scandinavian major Svensk Filmindustri (SF) announced last Friday that it had acquired the leading independent Swedish production and distribution outlet Sonet Film from Modern Times Group (MTG).

Following SF's acquisition of all rights to the Sonet titles, the company's distribution activities will close down and Sonet founder Peter Possne will set up a new independent production entity within SF, under the same brand name Sonet Film.

"The profile of the new Sonet will be Dreamworks/Working Title type of high profile movies," stressed the future Swedish production mogul who sees his new venture as "the next logical step" in his career.

Possne set up Sonet Film in 1984. The distribution company rapidly became the leading co-producer and co-financier of Swedish films in the 1990s and early 2000. He was associated to all of Lukas Moodysson's films as well as Kay Pollak's box office hit and Oscar nominated As It Is in Heaven. However, following a few difficult years for Sonet and a drop in its market-share from 8.2% to 2.3% in 2006, Possne and MTG decided to split last August.

Sonet Film's new life with SF, qualified by Possne as "a beautiful marriage", will provide him an opportunity to "fight for Swedish films both nationally and internationally. We are seeing very clear changes in the sense that the Swedish market is getting more and more international. Making films that are just ‘OK' is not working anymore. Ok movies are fine for TV or video and DVD, but if you want to reach the cinema audience, you have to think in terms of competition against US movies.

At the new Sonet, Possne will produce two to three high profile feature films per year for a broad audience and will  continue to "market his films in a high concept", working closely with SF's distribution unit. Part of his current distribution staff will follow him, but Mathias Berggren who was running Sonet's distribution activities since last summer, will move to MTG's headquarters as the new operation manager for Modern Studios.

Possne said will keep his relationships with filmmakers and producers (including Memfis Film) built over the last 20 years, but will wait until he gets the ‘perfect' script to go into production. Three projects are currently in development: The Hunters 2 (Jägarna 2), a sequel to the 1996 Swedish hit , Kay Pollak's new film, and another film based on Kerstin Thorwall's 1993 best-seller ‘Att Skjuta arbetare' (‘To Shoot Workers').