06/02/2006

Philippe Ramos’s Capitaine Achab, starring Denis Lavant, Mathieu Amalric and Isild Le Besco, will be the first French film to be co-produced by the leading Swedish regional film centre Film i Väst and the first French/Swedish co-production in 20 years since Andrei Tarkovski’s masterpiece The Sacrifice.

Based on the infamous Captain Ahab of Herman Melville’s classic novel Moby Dick, the film is the feature-length version of Ramos’ 23-minute short of the same name, which screened in official selection at the Directors’ Fortnight at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival. The feature will be produced in France by Florence Borelly (Sésame Films) and in Sweden by Olivier Guerpillon (DFM Fiktion), with co-financing coming from France’s National Film Centre and broadcaster ARTE.

Shooting will take place 50% in France and 50% in Sweden, with filming in Western Sweden set to start next July.

Captain Achab is part of Film i Väst’s new strategy to increase its co-production activities with international partners. Another major international co-production recently co-produced by Film i Väst is Clive Gordon’s thriller Cargo, a Spain/UK/Sweden co-production starring Daniel Brül and Peter Mullan, which had its world premiere at Sundance last month.