Tribeca selects female-driven Je'vida, The Gullspång Miracle, Apolonia, Apolonia

All three films that blur the lines between fiction and non-fiction and feature strong female protagonists, have received support from Nordisk Film & TV Fond.

Katja Gauriloff’s sophomore fiction film Je’vida, which is competing at the Tribeca Film Festival’s International Narrative competition, already grabbed the industry’s attention last September at Helsinki’s Finnish Film Affair where it won the Pitch Award.

The drama shot in black and white, is the first ever film in Skolt Sámi language.

Told through three different time periods, it centres on the withdrawn Je'vida who has abandoned her past as member of Finland’s indigenous Skolt Sámi community, under the pressures of assimilation. When she meets for the first time her niece and they drive to Lapland to empty a house they’ve inherited, the two women start taking interest in each other and reconnect with their roots.

Gauriloff herself a Skolt Sámi, paid tribute earlier to her indigenous roots in the multi-awarded documentary Kaisa’s Enchanted Forest, which focused on her grandmother.

Shot mostly with non-professionals but also with Seidi Haarla (Compartment No6), and Sanna-Kaisa Palo (On the Road to Emmaus), Je’vida was co-written by Gauriloff with Niillas Holmberg.

Joonas Berghäll, is producing for Oktober, with the backing from the Finnish Film Foundation and co-financing from Yle. Future Film will release the film domestically this fall.

Maria Fredriksson’s The Gullspång Miracle, selected among 12 titles for Tribeca’s Documentary competition programme, is sold internationally by London-based Met Film Sales. Ina Holmqvist is producing for Ballad Film.

The stranger-than-fiction documentary tells of a divine premonition that leads two sisters to buy an apartment in the small Swedish town of Gullspång. To their surprise, the seller looks identical to their older sister who died by suicide 30 years earlier. What begins as an eerie story of family reunification soon becomes a Pandora's Box as all three women's lives spiral out of control.

“We are super happy that the film will premiere at Tribeca, a festival that always focuses on exciting storytelling, regardless of genre or form of expression”, said the director and co-founder of Ballad Film.

The film was co-produced by SVT, Film i Väst, Film Stockholm, Norway’s Mer Film, and Good Company Pictures, with co-financing from NRK, YLE and DR.

Folkets Bio will handle the Swedish theatrical release and Mer Film the Norwegian release.

Meanwhile Lea Glob’s acclaimed documentary Apolonia, Apolonia which won IDFA’s top Feature Film Award last November, is having its US premiere at Tribeca’s Viewpoints section ‘for distinct points of view and bold directorial visions’.

The portrayal of the young and charismatic French painter Apolonia Sokol was produced by Danish Documentary Production’s Sidsel Siersted. Cats & Docs handles sales.

Read our interview with Lea Glob.

The Tribeca Film Festival founded in 2001 by Robert De Niro, Jane Rosenthal, and Craig Hatkoff, will unspool between June 7-18 in New York.

The selection committee including among others artistic director Fredric Boyer, has chosen a total of 109 feature films from 127 filmmakers across 36 countries.
For the first time, more than half the competition films (68%) are directed by women.