Dead woman in the lead of Solitude, the winner of Göteborg’s Novella Film Prize

by Jorn Rossing Jensen

27/01/2014 - Swedish director Beata Gårdeier awarded the €22,000 award, presented by Swedish pubcaster SVT for the last time – Danish director Per Fly earned his second prize for Best Swedish Feature

Dead woman in the lead of Solitude, the winner of Göteborg’s Novella Film Prize

Per Fly's Waltz for Monica

Swedish director Beata Gårdeier’s Solitude, starring Anna Bjelkerud, was Saturday (January 25) named Best Novella Film at the Göteborg International Film Festival, where Malin Idevall’s production for Bob Film Sweden received the €22,000 prize from Swedish pubcaster SVT, presented since 2001 and now for the last time.

Instead of backing projects for the programme (later aired by television), SVT has now launched Moving Sweden, in collaboration with the Swedish Film Institute, Swedish regional film centres, including Stockholm-Mälardalen, which will annually support new filmmakers from an annual €2.2 million budget.

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In Solitude, a 55-year-old woman is found dead in her apartment, unnoticed for months – nobody has missed her. The film follows the body to its final destination, through police and social authorities – and the estate administrations (including Bjelkerud) brought in to find any family she may have.

At the festival opening Friday (January 24), Swedish scriptwriter Peter Birro received the City of Göteborg’s Film Prize on behalf of Danish director Per Fly and his team behind Waltz for Monica [+see also:
trailer
interview: Edda Magnason
interview: Per Fly
film profile]. Birro penned the biopic on Swedish legendary singer-actress Monica Zetterlund, which earlier last week (January 20) collected four of the Swedish Film Institute’s Guldbaggar, Sweden’s national film prize, including Best Director and Best Actress (for Swedish-Icelandic singer-songwriter-musician Edda Magnason).

Prior to the festival, local audiences had voted for the three nominees - Waltz for Monica, Måns Mårlind-Björn Stein’s Shed No Tears and Anna Odell’s The Reunion [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] (which won two Guldbaggar, one for Bjelkerud as Best Supporting Actress) – and given Fly’s movie the best rating, 4.5 points out of five. The prize comes with a €5,500 cheque.