21/01/2014 - Swedish director Anna Odell’s first feature and Swedish-Icelandic singer-songwriter Edda Magnason’s film debut awarded at the Swedish Film Institute’s 50th anniversary awards

Swedish director Anna Odell (40) and Swedish-Icelandic singer-songwriter-musician Edda Magnason (29) were in focus last night (January 20) at Stockholm’s Circus, where the Swedish Film Institute for the 50^th time announced the Guldbagge awards, Sweden’s national film prize.

A graduate from Stockholm’s Royal Institute of Art, Odell – whose only film so far was part of her 2009 thesis – won two major awards for her feature debut, The Reunion [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (Best Film: Producer Mathilde Dedye, Best Screenplay: Odell). Screening in the My Own Private Europe series at the International Film Festival Rotterdam (January 22-February 2), it won the international critics’ FIPRESCI prize for Best First Feature in Venice 2013.

Born in Sweden, to an Icelandic father, Magnason began writing electronic music with English lyrics when she was 16, and released her first album in 2010. She received the Guldbagge for Best Actress in Danish director Per Fly’s Waltz for Monica [+see also:
trailer
interview: Edda Magnason
interview: Per Fly
film profile].

The biopic of Swedish legendary singer-actress Monica Zetterlund (who herself became an actress, to win Guldbaggar for Tage Danielsson’s Äppelkriget (1971) and Jan Troell’s The New Land (1972)), cashed in on four of 11 nominations: Best Director, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor (Sverrir Gudnason) and Best Costume Design (Kicki Ilander). The Lena Rehnberg production for StellaNova Film has taken 520,000 admissions domestically.

FULL LIST OF SWEDISH FILM INSTITUTE’S 2014 GULDBAGGE AWARDS:

Best Film: The Reunion. Prod: Mathilde Dedye

Best Director: Per Fly, for Waltz for Monica

Best Actress: Edda Magnason, for Waltz for Monica

Best Actor in a Leading Role: Mikael Persbrandt, for Nobody Owns Me [+see also:
trailer
film profile]. Dir: Kjell-Åke Andersson

Best Actress in a Supporting Role: Anna Bjelkerud, for Hotell. Dir: Lisa Langseth

Best Supporting Actor: Sverrir Gudnason, for Waltz for Monica

Best Screenplay: Anna Odell, for The Reunion

Best Cinematography: Petrus Sjövik, for Broken Hill Blues [+see also:
trailer
film profile]. Dir: Sofia Norlin

Best Editing: Håkan Wärn, for Shed No Tears. Dir: Måns Mårlind-Björn Stein

Best Costume Design: Kicki Ilander, for Waltz for Monica

Best Sound Design: Mattias Eklund, for Shed No Tears

Best Makeup: Lisa Mustafa, for We Are the Best! [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] Dir: Lukas Moodysson

Best Musical Score: Matti Bye, for Sanctuary [+see also:
trailer
film profile]. Dir: Fredrik Edfeldt

Best Set Design: Paola Holmér, Linda Janson, for We Are the Best!

Best Documentary: Belleville Baby. Dir: Mia Engberg

Best Short: On Suffocation. Dir: Jenifer Malmqvist

Best Foreign-Language Film: Blue Is the Warmest Color [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Abdellatif Kechiche
film profile]. Dir: Abdellatif Kechiche (France) 

Best Achievement: Sound engineer Owe Svensson

The Gullspira Award (for extraordinary contributions to films for children and youth audiences: Director Lukas Moodysson

Lifetime Achievement Award: Producer Kalle Boman

The Audience Award: The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared. Dir: Felix Herngren