02/05/2012 - Production funding is made availabe for new films from Swedish directors Sofia Norlin (Tenderness), Malik Bendjelloul (Searching for Sugar Man) and 14 others

Already backed by the Stockholm International Film Festival’s €500,000 scholarship for a woman filmmaker in the beginning of her career, Swedish director Sofia Norlin’s Tenderness, has also received funding from the Swedish Film Institute.

Norlin’s feature debut and Swedish director Malik Bendjelloul’s Searching for Sugar Man are the two full-length productions, which – with 14 shorts – will benefit from the institute’s latest €0.9 million allocation for new films.

Rolling since last month (March), Tenderness is set in Kiruna - the northern-most city of Sweden and stars Sebastian Hiort af Ornäs, Lina Leandersson and Joseph Bahran in Norlin’s story of a group of young people taking their first steps towards building a new society in a mining area while the ground is literally shaking under their feet.

Olivier Guerpillon, of digital filmmakers Sweden, produces the film, which will have its world premiere during the 23rd edition of the Stockholm festival (November 7-18). NonStop Entertainment will handle Nordic and Baltic distribution.

Credited for TV films about Björk, Kraftwerk, Elton John, Sting and Rod Stewart, Bendjelloul has this time followed two South Africans’ efforts to find out what really happened to their 1970s’ musical hero, the folk singer Sixto Rodriguez, who gave up his career after two flops and started to work as a demolition man in the poor neighbourhoods of Detroit.

Little did he know he would become one of his country’s most famous artists, selling more records than The Rolling Stones. The Canfield Pictures documentary won two prizes at Sundance Film Festival to be picked up for the US, Australia and France.