27/01/2005

Kay Pollack’ s local hit As It Is In Heaven is going to represent Sweden on the Academy Awards ceremony in Los Angeles on February 27. It is the second year in a row that Sweden is nominated in the Best foreign language category as Mikael Håfström’s Evil was last year’s Swedish candidate. In total, Sweden has been nominated fourteen times in that category and the homeland of Ingmar Bergman won three times the precious statuette thanks to the Swedish master’s The Virgin Spring in 1960, Through A Glass Darkly in 1961 and Fanny and Alexander in 1983.

As It Is In Heaven tells the story of a talented conductor recovering from a heart attack who comes back to his childhood village and rediscovers the joy of music when he takes over as leader of the church choir…A subject matter very similar to French hit The Chorus, also running for Best foreign language film! In the lead role is Swedish star actor Michael Nyqvist, and playing the part of his Italian girlfriend is Italian actress Verena Buratti (Life Is Beautiful).
Kay Pollack’s return to filmmaking after an 18-years absence, is a phenomenal hit in Sweden since it opened on September 3rd: Sonet Film, the film has attracted over 1.3m people and is still number 4 at the local box office after 21 weeks –a true record in a country that totals around 18m admissions a year.
The film was produced by GF Studios/Anders Birkeland and Göran Lindtröm, in co-production with Sonet Film, Noviemakers Nord, MoviemakersSyd, Filmpool Nord &ASA Film production with support from the Danish Film Institute, the Swedish Film Institute and Nordisk Film & TV Fund. Pathe International recently announced it would handle international sales on the film.