23/02/2007

Established producer Peter Kropenin is helping Iranian-born filmmaker Reza Bagher and his Polish colleague Agnieszka Likasiak – both based in Sweden – bring to the screen their personal views and/or traumas about immigration in Sweden.

Kropening, who produced Bagher’s acclaimed directorial debut Wings of Glass in 2000, is backing the director’s new project, Honour, about Muslim girls in Sweden, victims of their families’ “code of honour”. The project was one of 22 films chosen from 348 international potential candidates for the Berlinale co-production market. According to Kropenin, filming is scheduled for next spring.

Likasiak, who escaped from Poland in 1984 and came to Sweden as a political refugee, has directed several acclaimed documentaries, including The Forgotten Ones (Bortglömda) in 2005. With Between Two Fires, she is going to tackle a very personal subject matter: life in a refugee camp, “between the ‘here and now’” as described by the 29 year-old filmmaker.

The film, based on her original screenplay, will tell the moving story of Marta Kowalska (of Ukrainian origin) who arrives at an immigration camp in northern Sweden with her nine year-old daughter. She slowly falls for Algerian-born Ali, who has lost his own wife and daughter back home, victims of terrorists. As deportation becomes imminent for them both, Martha sacrifices her love and chooses safety for her daughter’s sake. But she and Ali will cross paths again.

The film will be produced by Kropenin’s Hob Film in co-production with Apple Film in Poland. Filming is scheduled for winter 2007. The two feature films will be the first productions made for Hob AB, Kropenin’s new solo venture since his split last year from former partner in Omega Film, Lennart Dunér.