Dafoe, Audiard and Troell to be awarded in Stockholm

US actor Willem Dafoe [pictured], French director Jacques Audiard and Swedish director Jan Troell will all leave the 23^rd Stockholm International Film Festival with overweight luggage – a 7.3-kilo bronze Dala Horse, the world’s heaviest film prize, created by Swedish artist Fredrik Swärd - which they will receive for different reasons during the Nov 7-18 showcase.

Dafoe will be honoured by the Stockholm Achievement Award 2012 on Nov 8 as “one of the worlds most multifaceted actors who has the power to hypnotise his audience with just one glance. He is playing characters who treads on the breaking point and whose controlled exterior hides an inner chaos – a chaos we can’t get enough of,” said the jury. Twice Oscar-nominated he had his breakthrough in US director Oliver Stone’s Platoon (1986) and is currently filming Lars von Trier’s  Nymphomaniac, having also performed in the Danish director’s Antichrist (2009).

Screening his latest feature, Rust and Bone, in the festival programme, Audiard will be presented with the Stockholm Visionary Award 2012 on Nov 12 for “making bold films that let us look right into human soul – there are no simple characters, here the little guy is the great hero.” Audiard’s new film was launched at the Cannes festival, where he won the Jury Grand Prix in 2009 for A Prophet.

Swedish director Jan Troell, whose The Last Sentence won for Best Director at Montreal’s World Film Festival, will accept the Stockholm Lifetime Achievement Award 2012 on Nov 10 – “a director, who has always been a nomad, and in whose artistry the image and the observation have always been the foundation for documenting the essential.” Troell, who was Oscar-nominated for The Emigrants (1973), has written (with Danish author Klaus Rifbjerg), directed, photographed and edited his new drama which is on show in the festival, prior to its local premiere on Dec 7.

More than 170 films from over 50 countries have been selected for this year’s catalogue, including 20 for the international competition and the 7.3-kilo bronze horse grand prix, which will be judged by a jury presided over by US actor Peter Fonda (whose Easy Rider will screen on Nov 10). Among jury members are Serbian director Srdjan Dragojevic and Swedish actress Malin Crepin.

Seven Swedish young and coming actors have been nominated for the Viasat Rising Star prize, which have previously been given to Malin Buska and Alicia Vikander, both embarking on an international career: Josefin Asplund (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Call Girl), Björn Gustafsson (Cockpit), Sofia Karemy (Call Girl), Fanny Ketter (The Bridge, Bitch Hug), Nermina Lukac (Eat Sleep Die), Madeleine Martin (Quick Money II) and Linda Molin (She Monkeys, Bitch Hug).