19/11/2013 - Swedish director Fia-Stina Sandlund receives the Stockholm International Film Festival’s feature award with €600,000 cash and production services for her first film

Swedish director Fia-Stina Sandlund’s She’s Wild Again Tonight [+see also:
trailer
film profile] –“a post-modern, metafictional, slightly absurd re-make of Strindberg's 1888 play, Miss Julie” – won the Stockholm Feature Film Award at the 24^th Stockholm International Film Festival, which ended Sunday (November 17).

While the 2013 grand prix for the second consecutive year went to a woman filmmaker - UK director Clio Barnard’s The Selfish Giant [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Clio Barnard
interview: Clio Barnard
film profile] (2012: Australian director Cate Shortland’s Lore [+see also:
trailer
interview: Saskia Rosendahl
film profile]) – the Feature Award will always benefit a Swedish woman filmmaker and comes with €600,000 cash and production services for her next production.

Backed by main financier Telia, Europa Sound & Vision, Dagsljus, and supported by the Swedish Film Institute and Swedish pubcaster SVT, the Stockholm festival also includes the world premiere of the film in its upcoming line-up, and Swedish distributor NonStop Entertainment will release it in the Nordic countries.

Scripted by Sandlund and Josefine Adolfsson, to be produced by Tobias Jansonfor Story AB, She's Wild AgainTonight stars Swedish actress Alexandra Dahlström (Julie) and Swedish composer-guitarist Jens Lekman (Jean), who meet in a contemporary New York apartment to play heightened versions of themselves.

Swedish director Sofia Norlin’s Tenderness, which received the 2011 award, was premiered at this year’s festival. Starring Sebastian Hiort af Ornäs, Alfred Juntti and Lina Leandersson, Norlin’s first feature is set in a small community built around a mine in Northern Sweden; a group of teenagers are about to take the leap into adult age, learning to live, love and dream, while the ground trembles under their feet. Produced by Olivier Guerpillon for Digital Filmmakers, Tenderness is set for general release on December 6.

The 2012 winner, Swedish director Amanda Adolfsson’s Young Sophie Bell [+see also:
trailer
film profile], is described as a “thrilling and touching depiction of growing up, facing the future and simultaneously handling your past.” The story of friendship, love and death follows two 19-year-old girls, Sophie and Alice, living together in a tight friendship – one smart and clever, the other direct and wild. When Alice dies, Sophie begins to question their relationship. Gila Bergkvist Ulfung will produce for Breidablick Film.