04/01/2007

As part of the anniversary celebrations of the 30th Göteborg International Film Festival (January 26-February 5), five first time filmmakers – including the UK’s Andrea Arnold and Norwegian director Joachim Trier – will compete for the Ingmar Bergman International Debut Award, which will be presented for the first time on February 3, 2007.

“The award is an encouragement for young filmmakers who should engage in important matters at a time when the film industry has come the closest to resembling a world full of massacres and whores”, said the 88 year-old director in a provocative statement. Bergman made his own film debut 60 years ago with Kris (Crisis).

The living legend will sit on the jury with filmmaking colleagues Agnieszka Holland and Jafar Panahi as well as Bergman specialist and film professor Maaret Koskinen and Stephen Ujlaki, who worked as Bergman’s assistant in the late 1960s.

The Ingmar Bergman Award consists of one week's stay at Fårö’s Bergman Week in the summer of 2007 and a beautiful engraved stone from Bergman's own beach at Fårö.

The five nominees are Arnold (for her multiple award-winning film Red Road), Trier (Reprise, Best Director at Karlovy Vary 2006), Czech director Marta Nováková (Marta), Hungary’s Agnes Kocsis (Fresh Air, first screened at the 2006 Cannes Critics Week) and Russian director Boris Khlebnikov (Free Floating).