15/10/2012 - Swedish director Gabriela Pichler's feature debut, which was honoured in Venice, will show that 'unemployment is more than just numbers and statistics'

Swedish director Gabriela Pichler's feature debut, Eat Sleep Die [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: China Ahlander
interview: Gabriela Pichler
interview: Nermina Lukac
film profile], which won the RaroVideo Audience Award in the Critics' Week at the Venice International Film Festival, will have a special screening in the Swedish parliament on October 24, upon initiative from the Social Democrat's labour policy spokeswoman Ylva Johansson.

"This film is possibly the most exciting and emotionally acute first feature to emerge from Sweden in well over a decade," wrote Steve Gravestock of the Toronto International Film Festival, which showed the film in the Discovery Section, before it continued to the international competition in Zürich and now is unspooling in the Warsaw International Film Festival.

"I made this film to give a broad picture of Sweden anno 2012 – this is what it looks like right now – and it makes me incredibly happy that the voices of the film characters will echo in Parliament and show that unemployment is more than just numbers and statistics," said Pichler. Scripted by Pichler (Interview), and starring Nermina Lukac, Milan Dragišic, Peter Fält, Ružica Pichlerand and Jonathan Lampinen, Eat Sleep Die portrays a 20-year-old jobless girl in a small village, who wants her life to be more than eat sleep die, while trying to meet state demands that unemployed should look for work in the whole country.

Produced by China Åhlander and Linda Sternö for Anagram produktion, the film was released domestically by Triart Film on October 5 to unanimous critical acclaim. Finnish-Swedish international sales outfit The Yellow Affair handles foreign distribution.