01/02/2005

The Göteborg Film Festival, the biggest film festival in the Nordic region has prepared a special Swedish smörgåsbord for its 28th annual event screening over 450 titles (of which 200 Swedish) in 21 different sections until Saturday 7 February.

The Swedish taste of this year’s event was given on the opening night January 28th with the special Göteborg Award (Skr50,000) handed out to Maria Blom’s Guldbagge winner and box office hit Dalecarlians (Masjävlar) and the screening of Mats Årehn’s new film The Chef (Kocken), the first title running for the Nordic Film prize. Besides Årehn’s semi-autobiographical film are seven other new Nordic feature films that will try to win the Skr100,000 cash prize and the Dragon statuette of the Nordic competition to be awarded on 4 February. Another Swedish title is competing: Henrik Georgson’s Sandor Slash Ida, while Denmark has Susanne Bier’s critically acclaimed Brothers (Brødre) and Anders Rønnow Klarlund ‘s Strings [+see also:
trailer
film profile]. Finland is submitting its current local hit Frozen Land (Paha maa) by Aku Louhimies, Iceland the documentary Screaming Masterpiece (Gargandi Snilld) by Ari Alexander Ergis, and Norway the films My Jealous Barber (Min Misunnelige frisør) by Annette Sjursen, produced by Maipo Film & TV, and Winter Kiss (Vinterkyss) directed by Sara Johnsen.

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The winner of nine short ‘novella’ films by Swedish new directors will also be announced on 4 February by its co-sponsors the Swedish Film Institute and Swedish public broadcaster SVT. Among the contenders for this year’s ‘Novella prize’ of Skr 200,000 is Swedish actress Pernilla August’s directorial debut Blindgångare and Björn Runge ’s Rensa Fisk.
Two other sections are dedicated to Nordic’s most recent productions: Nordic Lights presenting 23 Nordic (non-Swedish) films never shown before in Sweden and the Nordic Event, a film market where some 150 professionals (including international distributors and festival programmers) are able select their favorite Nordic titles between Thursday 3rd and Sunday 6 February.
And of course hundreds of non-Nordic films also screen in Göteborg as part of special sidebars such as Springtime for Germany (a selection of new German cinema), Europe expanding (films from new EU countries), French connection (films from French speaking countries including Belgium, Switzerland and Canada) Latin Tales or Out of Africa.