18/04/2017 - Swedish director Ted Kjellsson’s feature debut will be the first production made in Swedish regional film centre Filmpool Nord’s new studio

For its first production, Swedish regional film centre Filmpool Nord’s new studio in Boden Business Park, Norrbotten – Sweden’s northernmost county – will stand in for outer space: on 3 July, Stockholm’s Nice Drama will start principal photography for Swedish director Ted Kjellsson’s feature debut, Alone in Space, a sci-fi adventure for family audiences.

Newcomers Ella Rae Rappaport and Dante Fleischanderl will play siblings Gladys and Keaton, who are on a computer-guided evacuation spaceship, on their way to the paradise planet of Vial after an environmental disaster. However, their voyage turns into a fight for survival when the friendly alien refugee Vojajer crashes into them.

Alone in Space is based on Swedish actor-author-playwright Henrik Ståhl’s 2012 stage play Vial. Ståhl has written the screenplay with Kjellsson and performs as Vojajer in the Sonja Hermele, Anna Knochenhauer and Stefan Baron production for Nice Drama, with Filmpool Nord, Chimney, Dagsljus and Ljudbang also on board. Nordisk Film will handle the local distribution and has set the release for autumn 2018.

“Throughout my career, I have tried to find a science-fiction idea that really grabs me, and I had almost given up hope until I saw Vial. Then I knew I was going to make a cool and funny, yet thought-provoking and important, science-fiction film in Swedish – a family film that we have not seen before; colourful, beautiful, energetic, dreamy, sensitive and enchanting,” Kjellsson explained. “It feels almost like Christmas Eve: a science-fiction film is just perfect as a first project for our new studio – it will test everything that’s in here,” added Susann Jonsson, managing director of Filmpool Nord.

Before Alone in Space, Kjellsson directed shorts and documentaries, most recently Swedish pubcaster SVT’s family action-drama Skrotarna (2013).