The leading Swedish contenders with four nominations each are Niels Arden Oplev's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Fredrik Edfeldt's The Girl and Lisa Siwe's Glowing Stars, while Klaus Härö's Letters to Father Jacob (photo) is the strongest Jussi candidate with nine nominations.
The first ‘Millennium' film and Glowing Stars are competing in the top category of Best Film, against Teresa Fabik's youth drama Starring Maja. Noomi Rapace (Dragon Tattoo) will offer tough competition to Malin Crépin (In Your Veins) and Stina Ekblad (A Rational Solution) vying for Best Actress. First timers Edfeldt and Siwe are running for Best Director, along with Fabik, and Ulf Malmros has three nominations, including Best Script, for his box office hit The Wedding Photographer. Three films have been selected for Best Documentary, including Videocracy.
Letters to Father Jacob Finland's entry at this year's Academy Awards nominations for Best Foreign Film is running for Best Film, Director, Script and Leading Actress. The second biggest Jussi nominees with six nods each are The Interrogation by Finland's prominent producer/filmmaker Jörn Donner and The Visitor by Jukka-Pekka Valkeapää. The Interrogation, in which Minna Haapkylä plays Soviet spy of Finnish origin Kerttu Nuorteva, is running in the top categories of Best Film and Leading Actress. Valkeapää is vying for Best Director with his feature debut. He will find strong rivals in Härö and Dome Karukoski (Forbidden Fruit), winner of a Jussi in this category last year for Home of the Dark Butterflies. The historical film Under the North Star by Timo Koivusalo has five nominations, including Best Film. The two main actors in the divorce comedy drama The House of Branching Love by Aki Kaurismäki, i.e. Hannu-Pekka Björkman and Elina Knihtilä are both nominated in their categories.
Nordisk Film & TV Fond has a total of 15 Guldbagge nominations and 22 Jussi nominations. The Guldbagge awards ceremony will be held on January 25 and the Jussis on January 31.
For the full list of Guldbagge nominations, see: http://www.sfi.se/ and for the Jussi nominations http://www.ses.fi/