The Guldbagge Award, Sweden's top film honor awarded by the Swedish Film Institute, turns 50 this year. Winners across 19 categories will be presented with the coveted red and gold beetle (named for the actual beetle, the "Guldbagge"), perhaps one of the most unique designs for a film award in the world. The awards also include the Gullspira Children's Film Award and the Lifetime Achievement Award. Nominations for Sweden's national film award were decided in early December through a voting committee of 45 members. Women made a great showing in a number of categories, which is not surprising given the cultural zeitgeist that makes things like the Swedish Film Institute's focus on gender equity behind the camera as well as the recent installation of a Bechdel Test-passing standard for films in Swedish theaters possible. To read through the list of all nominees, click here. The awards will be presented on January 20 in Stockholm.
BEST DIRECTOR
While only one of the three directors nominated was a female director, Anna Odell, she was also nominated in the Best Screenplay category for the same film, The Reunion (Återträffen).
BEST DIRECTOR
While only one of the three directors nominated was a female director, Anna Odell, she was also nominated in the Best Screenplay category for the same film, The Reunion (Återträffen).
She premiered her film at the Venice Film Festival in 2013 where it won the FIPRESCI prize for best debut feature in the sections Orrizonti and International Critics' Week. It saw a release in Sweden in November of 2013. Odell's film focuses on a high school reunion where the protagonist plans to confront her former classmates about being bullied in school, with Odell presenting the story with both a feel of fiction and documentary. Odell is also a known Swedish artist, famous in part for a controversial enactment of a psychotic episode in 2009 as part of an art installation called "Unknown Woman" which resulted in discussions about mental health care in Sweden as well as debates about her tactics. Odell's film has garnered four nominations for the Guldbagge Awards.
TRAILER (in Swedish) for The Reunion (written by Anna Odell)
TRAILER (in Swedish) for The Reunion (written by Anna Odell)
BEST SCREENPLAY
Women dominate the three-nominee category of Best Screenplay, with Cilla Jackert nominated for Shed No Tears, Lisa Langseth for Hotell, and Anna Odell for The Reunion. From what I've read, Cilla Jackert appears to be in the front running for her script Shed No Tears (Känn ingen sorg). While Jackert has written for quite a number of Swedish television shows since the mid-1990's, it was with the film Feel No Sorrow, about Swedish composer and singer/pop icon Hakan Hellstrom, that she made her feature screenwriting debut in 2012. Shed No Tears appears to be her sophomore feature screenplay and trailing only second to Monica Z for nominations for the Guldbagge Awards, having snagged nine nominations.
TRAILER (in Swedish) for Shed No Tears (written by Cilla Jackert)
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Lisa Langseth both wrote and directed Hotell which played at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2013. Serving as her sophomore feature directing effort, Hotell is a film about a therapy group of troubled people who collectively decide to "become" other people, checking into a hotel together as a way to act out that fantasy. Langseth's Hotell garnered four nominations for the Guldbagge Awards.
TRAILER (with English subtitles) for Hotell (written & directed by Lisa Langseth)
BEST FILM
Women producers garnered two out of the three nominations for Best Film, with Mathilde Dedye nominated for The Reunion (written by Anna Odell), and Lena Rehnberg nominated for Waltz for Monica / Monica Z, a biopic of Swedish singer/actress Monica Zetterlund. Monica Z leads the pack of nominees for the Guldbagge Awards with 11 nominations.
TRAILER (in Swedish) for Monica Z (produced by Lena Rehnberg)
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BEST DOCUMENTARY
The Best Documentary film category was also dominated by female directors who made up two of the three nominees in the category: Belleville Baby (by Mia Engberg) and Forest of the Dancing Spirits (De dansande andarnas skog, by Linda Västrik).
Mia Engberg's Belleville Baby tells the story of a woman who reminisces with her former lover about the past they shared while living in Paris. Engberg has been working in film for at least the past 20 years, making a number of films and frequently focusing on social issues. She is known in Sweden and abroad for Dirty Diaries, an anthology she produced of 12 porn films made by feminists; she's been involved with feminist porn since at least the early 2000's.
TRAILER (with English subtitles) for Belleville Baby (directed by Mia Engberg)
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The Yaka/Mbendjele tribe of the Congo basin is the subject of Linda Västrik's first feature-length documentary, Forest of the Dancing Spirits. The tribe's way of life is being changed by the encroachment of the country's largest logging company. Västrik also produced this film and has served as a cinematographer and writer for her past projects. For this film, the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam awarded her the Peter Wintonick Special Jury Award for First Appearance, an award named for the late Canadian documentary filmmaker Peter Wintonick.
TRAILER for Forest of the Dancing Spirits (directed by Linda Västrik)
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BEST SHORT FILM
Women directors make up the three nominees in this category, with Sanna Lenken nominated for Eating Lunch (Äta lunch), a film which she also wrote; Joanna Rytel for Me Seal, Baby, and Jenifer Malmqvist for On Suffocation which screened in 2013 at Sundance and which I wrote about on this blog.
Lenken has written and directed a number of short films and is scheduled to be a participant in Berlinale Talents in February. Eating Lunch was a 2013 nominee for the Best Swedish Short Award at the Goteburg International Film Festival. Annika Rogell served as producer on this film.
CLIP (with English subtitles) from Eating Lunch (written & directed by Sanna Lenken)
follow this filmmaker on Twitter @SannaLenken
Rytel's short film Me Seal, Baby is about the obsession with getting pregnant by an infertile man. Produced by Joanna Rytel and Kira Carpelan, Me Seal, Baby, will screen at the Uppsala International Short Film Festival this October.
TRAILER (with English subtitles) for Me Seal, Baby (directed by Joanna Rytel)
TRAILER (with English subtitles) for Me Seal, Baby (directed by Joanna Rytel)
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