Major revamping at Swedish Film Institute
by Annika Pham
Cissi Elwin, CEO of the Swedish Film Institute (SFI), has just announced major plans to revamp the state-supported organisation, including job cuts of 10% of its personnel (20 staff members) and an overhaul of its production support to improve the quality of Swedish films and their image both nationally and internationally.
“We can see that now even that audiences are not responding [to Swedish films]. Plus, many of the projects are underfinanced, which is bad for quality”, stressed Edwin at a press conference last week.
Indeed, according to recent figures, Swedish films’ market share of total admissions up until September 2006 was 19.3%, 3.2% lower than during the same period last year while admissions for all films were up by 7% to 10.9m.
For Edwin, what needs to be done to reverse this downhill trend is to increase the SFI’s level of support on selected projects (from 25% to 40%) and the financing of films in development, to lower the number of films supported annually (from 30 to 20 approximately) and to concentrate on new talent. One of the new initiatives in this area will be the creation of a new scheme with Swedish broadcaster SVT, regional film funds Film I Väst and Filmpool Nord to provide support to lower budget first time and second feature films.
In order to see the SFI’s new production policy through, Elwin has appointed Charlotte Denward as the new head of the Production. She will begin her new post on December 15 while Peter Hald, who has held that position for several decades, will continue to work closely with Elwin as her vice-president.
Denward has worked for over 20 years in the Swedish film industry. From 1996-2000, she was film commissioner for the SFI and films she supported include Lukas Moodysson’s Show Me Love and Reza Bagher’s Wings of Glass. More recently, she worked for production outfit Filmlance International, where she produced Klaus Härö’s 2003 hit Elina and his upcoming Den nya människan (The New Person).
The international department of the SFI is also going to be reshuffled with the departure of its current director Staffan Grönberg.
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