08/10/2012 - Second only next A Respectable Life (1979), Swedish directors Kristina Lindström and Maud Nycander's biopic is Sweden's best-grossing documentary on theatrical release

While Swedish pubcaster SVT is in production with The Death of a Pilgrim – a 4x60min television series about unsolved assassination in 1986 of Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme – Swedish directors Kristina Lindström and Maud Nycander's biopic of Palme has now sold more than 100,000 tickets in theatrical release, according to local distributor Scanbox Entertainment Sweden.

Palme [+see also:
trailer
film profile], which was produced by Fredrik Heinig and Mattias Nohrborg for St Paul Film and B-Reel Feature Films, with SVT and Swedish reginal film centre, Film i Väst, is the best-grossing Swedish documentary since A Respectable Life (1979), from Stefan Jarl's Mods trilogy. The 103-minute edit was launched on September 14 at 91 venues (110 screens): SVT will air a 3x60 min version at Christmas.

Based on material from SVT and other archives private super 8-films, adding new interviews with Swedish politicians such as Carl Bildt, Ingvar Carlsson, South African activist bishop Desmond Tutu and the Palme family, Lindström-Nycander have portrayed "Palme the politician and the private individual in an interaction with the period, to the new generation which was not even born when he was killed".

On February 28, 2013, at 11:29pm, it will be 27 years since Palme was murdered at Stockholm's Sveavägen, but the film ends before this moment. "When you begin to talk about his assassination, you get to a full stop," explained Lindström. "Who shot him and why? The image of Palme has been traumatised by his homicide – there has been a fear of asking questions. We hope our film will give a modern picture of him."