Johannes Brost stars in Avalon. Photo: Måns Månsson
Avalon
Axel Petersén's feature debut Avalon has been selected for the Forum section of the Berlin International Film Festival. This marks the first time that a Swedish film screened at the Toronto festival has been chosen for Berlin.
The Forum section focuses on promising talents at the intersection of art and film. Avalon, which opened the Göteborg Film Festival, is competing in Berlin for the best debut award, similar to the FIPRESCI award the film won earlier in Toronto.
Avalon centres on Janne (played by Johannes Brost), a 60-year-old planning to run a nightclub during the annual tennis week in the Swedish town of Båstad, where he teams up with his recently divorced older sister Jackie. But an accident suddenly turns his life upside down, and he desperately begins to seek a way out.
International sales: TrustNordisk.
The Crown Jewels
Ella Lemhagen's triangle drama The Crown Jewels (Kronjuvelerna) gets its international premiere at the Berlin Film Festival in competition in the section Generation 14plus.
The Crown Jewels follows Fragancia Fernandez, arrested for the attempted murder of the son of a rich company director. Under police questioning the background to the crime emerges together with her remarkable story of childhood poverty and her love for a famous ice hockey player. Ella Lemhagen (Patrik Age 1.5) is no stranger to the Berlinale: she won the Silver Bear for Best Feature in 2000 with Tsatsiki, morsan och polisen and was also in competition in 2005 with Immediate Boarding.
The film stars Bill Skarsgård, recently selected as one of Europe's 10 Shooting Stars, Alicia Vikander (last year's Shooting Star) and Björn Gustafsson, one of Sweden's most popular comic actors.
International sales: TrustNordisk.
Fanni Metelius' short film Unruly (Banga inte) will also screen as part of Generation 14plus. The film centres on 15-year-old Mickan and her friends during the final days of their school summer holidays in 1999 – a world free of adults in which dilemmas about sex, love and friendship abound.
The Ice Dragon
Martin Högdahl's feature The Ice Dragon (Isdraken) is in competition in the section for younger children, Generation Kplus. Based on Martin Engström's children's novel of the same name, the film is the story of 11-year-old Mik. Martin Högdahl graduated from film school in Göteborg in 2003.
Three Swedish shorts in Generation
Three Swedish shorts are also screening in the section for children.
In Alicja Björk Jaworski's animation Just a Little (Bara lite) we follow Little Pig who, on her way for an early summer swim, meets up with a hedgehog with too few spines, a crow with a beak that's too long, a green lamb and a white-spotted calf.
Heroes (Hjältar) by Carolina Hellsgård is set in a suburban riding stables situated between a motorway and electricity pylons where two girls, Linnea and Jenny, try to combine stable life and a love of horses with the onset of teenage years. Carolina Hellsgård studied in Berlin and at Cal Arts in Los Angeles.
Emelie Wallgren and Ina Holmqvist's documentary The Quiet One looks at a Stockholm pre-school for children from around the world as they learn Swedish before transferring to mainstream school. Recently arrived with her mother from Iran, six-year-old Maryam hasn't yet learnt the language nor managed to find friends in her new environment. Wallgren and Holmqvist were nominated for a Swedish Guldbagge award in 2010 for their documentary So Close (Så nära).
Looking Out in Berlinale Shorts
The documentary short Looking Out (Utsikter) by Marcus Harrling and Moa Geistrand is the only Nordic film selected for the principal short film section, Berlinale Shorts, where it will be in competition for the Golden Bear. This year's theme for the section is "Say Goodbye to the Story”. 27 films from 22 countries are competing for the prestigious Golden Bear.
Looking Out follows Marie, one of very few women prisoners in Sweden, as she prepares for her release. The prospect of leaving the relative comfort and stability of prison life for the outside causes her both joy and some trepidation.
Forum Expanded
There are also two Swedish films in competition in the art film section Forum Expanded. Wolfgang Lehmann's Dragonflies with Birds and Snake (Trollsländor med fåglar och orm) is an hour-long experimental video meditation on life and death. And O.G.B.I.P [Our Global Behavior Is Psychopathic II] by Jennifer Rainsford and Virlani Hallberg is a loop installation critique of clinical psychiatry, which will run daily in an art gallery.
Bill Skarsgård – this year's Shooting Star
For the second year running the international jury of European Film Promotion (EFP) has chosen a Swedish actor as one of Europe's ten Shooting Stars.
Born in 1990, Bill is the son of the actor Stellan Skarsgård and the younger brother of Alexander and Gustaf Skarsgård (who was himself also a Shooting Star).
Bill Skarsgård's major breakthrough came in 2010 when he played the lead as a young man with Asperger syndrome in Andreas Öhman's Simple Simon. The film received five Guldbagge nominations, one of which was for Bill Skarsgård as best actor in a leading role. Selected as Sweden's entry for the Oscars, the film also won him the audience award at the Seattle Film Festival. In the same year he won many accolades for his part in Hannes Holm's feature Behind Blue Skies.
In 2011 Bill also appeared in two major films. In Ella Lemhagen's The Crown Jewels he played one of the leads alongside last year's Shooting Star, Alicia Vikander. And Swedish audiences can currently see him in Lisa Ohlin's major feature Simon and the Oaks.
Bill Skarsgård has recently been chosen for Norwegian director Torun Lian's upcoming film Victoria, based on the novel of the same name by Knut Hamsun.
Last year's Shooting Star in the main competition
Apart from in The Crown Jewels, we can also see last year's Shooting Star Alicia Vikander in the historical drama A Royal Affair. Primarily a Danish production, the film received funding from the Swedish Film Institute, film commissioner Lars G. Lindström. Alicia Vikander stars in the film alongside Mads Mikkelsen among others. International sales: TrustNordisk.
One of Sweden's greatest actors of all time, Max von Sydow, will also be attending the festival. He appears in Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close, which is in competition for the Golden Bear. It was recently announced that both the film and Max himself have been nominated for an Oscar. Directed by Stephen Daldry, the film also stars Tom Hanks and Sandra Bullock.
Born in 1929, Max von Sydow made his film debut in 1949. He took part in ten of Ingmar Bergman's films, including The Seventh Seal, where he plays the knight who plays chess with death, Winter Light and The Magician. His other major films include The Exorcist, Hannah and her Sisters and Pelle the Conqueror.
Also attending the Berlinale will be the new CEO of the Swedish Film Institute, Anna Serner, and representatives of the Institute's international department.
If you wish to arrange an interview with any of those attending the festival named above, please contact Jan Göransson, Press Officer of the Swedish Film Institute, jan.goransson@sfi.se +46 706 03 03 62 who can organize contacts with relevant publicists. Jan will be attending the festival between 10-14 February.
For further information
Contact Pia Lundberg, head of the Swedish Film Institute's international department, pia.lundberg@sfi.se, +46 706 92 79 80 or Gunnar Almér, head of festivals and features, gunnar.almer@sfi.se, +46 706 40 46 56.
The Swedish Film Institute's stand at the festival can be found at the Market in Martin-Gropius-Bau, Niederkirchnerstraße 7.