02/11/2012 - The Stockholm International Film Festival nominates three woman directors for the second Stockholm Feature Film Award, which comes with €0.6 million cash and production services

Swedish directors Görel Crona, Amanda Olofsson and Marietta Von Hausswolf von Baumgarten have been nominated for the second Stockholm Feature Film Award for woman directors - €600,000 cash and production services for an upcoming movie - with the winner to be announced at the closing ceremony of the 23rd Stockholm International Film Festival on November 17.

Last year Crona's feature debut, The Quiet Game (photo), received Swedish national pubcaster SVT's Newcomer Award and toured several international festivals, while Olofsson and von Baumgarten are first-time directors. Sofia Norlin, who collected last year's prize, will screen the result - Tenderness - in the upcoming programme of November 7-18.

"To highlight woman directors and provide the basics for a feature film are practical ways of letting new talents meet their audiences," said Festival Director Git Scheynius, of the Stockholm International Film Festival, whose project is backed by ao the Swedish Film Institute, SVT and mobile operator Telia.

"Supporting female filmmakers is fully in line with institute policy: next year our production funding must be 50-50 shared by man and woman directors," added Film Commissioner Magdalena Jangard, who signs an institute cheque of €200,000 for the winner and €29,000 for the two runners-up.

Cayuco, Crona's contender for the award, follows Swedish 16-year-old Sara visiting the Canary Islands when an overloaded boat of refugees trying to reach their dream of Europe wrecks off the coast - among the survivors is Mamadou. Production is in the hands of Klara Björk for Filmkreatörerna.

Olofsson, who won the festival's 1 Km Film scholarship in 2006, has been nominated for Young Sophie Bell, a coming-of-age story of "friendship, sex and fucking death - about embracing the future and at the same time processing the past". It will be produced by Gila Bergkvist Ulfung for Breidablick Film.

Von Baumgarten, who scripted Mikael Marcimain's festival opener, Call Girl [+see also:
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The winning film by "a woman director with a clear vision and a focus on strong stories" will have its world premiere during next year's Stockholm International Film Festival. Swedish (and Nordic, Baltic) distributor NonStop Entertainment will release the title theatrically and on DVD in Scandiavia and the Baltics.