In a record year, Film i Väst will host 22 feature film productions
After filming for almost a month on locations around Göteborg, Swedish director Mårten Klingberg’s comedy Cockpit has left Swedish regional film centre, Film i Väst, to shoot the remaining exteriors in Stockholm.
The Rebecka Lafrenz and Mimmi Spång production for Garagefilm International is one of the 22 Swedish and foreign features which will this year be made in the Västra Götaland region. Adding five major television series, and post-production services for another 14 films, the centre in Trollhättan is heading for a record year to exceed the 2010 turnover of €10.5 million.
Cockpit, which reunites Klingberg with the star of his 2006 break Offside, Jonas Karlsson, is the story of a pilot who loses his job, wife and house at the same time. As a woman, Maria, wearing a wig and a dress, he starts a new career. Film i Väst co-produces, with Swedish public broadcaster SVT and Nordisk Film.
At this year’s Cannes International Film Festival, six entries in different sections of the official programme were co-signed by Film i Väst. ”So far we have mainly been involved in co-productions with Nordic and smaller European partners,” explained the centre’s managing director Tomas Eskilsson. ”In 2012-2013, however, we will se an increasing number of projects instigated by major territories, including the UK, France, even the US.”
The bulk of new productions are still domestic, including Swedish directors Jan Troell’s Truth and Consequences; Ulf Malmros’ Metal Brothers; the second installment in the Easy Money franchise, with Babak Najafi at the helm; Lisa James Larsson’s feature debut, EGO; Jens Sjögren’s Switzerland; and Teresa Fabik’s Små citroner gula.
One of Film i Väst’s major foreign clients is Denmark’s Zentropa Entertainments, ”which has collaborated with the centre even longer than the duration of an average Danish marriage,” per CEO Peter Aalbæk Jensen. Danish director Lars von Trier has shot most of his films there, including Melancholia [+see also:
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Most recently Zentropa’s Norwegian subsidiary filmed Petter Næss’ World War II drama, Comrade, in Trollhättan, which will also facilitate the post-production of Susanne Bier’s All You Need Is Love, Nicolas Winding Refn’s Only God Forgives, Nikolaj Arcel’s A Royal Affair and Christian E Christiansen’s ID:A.
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