Stockholm International Film Festival to support women directors

32 women directors have submitted projects for new films to the Stockholm International Film Festival which will back one of them with $0.8 million (SEK 5 million) – and premiere it at next year’s festival on a Nordic and Baltic distribution contract with NonStop Entertainment.

”There are obviously many hungry female directors in Sweden just waiting to make films,” said festival director Git Scheynius.

A selection committee of Swedish Film Institute  commissioner Lars G Lindström, Scheynius and the festival’s head of programming George Ivanov will nominate five-ten of the incoming projects. A jury will decide on the winner, who must have no more than two feature productions credits; the runners-up will each receive $38,000 (SEK 250,000) development funding.

”After they have had their debuts, women directors usually find it difficult to get through with their second or third feature – in Sweden women’s share is 30%, against men’s 70%,” explained Scheynius. ”The scheme runs for three years, so at best we will be able to support 30 woman directors.” The winner of the first installment will be announced at the festival’s November 19 awards ceremony.

Unspooling its 22nd edition between November 9-20, the festival will announce its full line-up next week (October 19), which will include more 180  films from 50 countries – among them are Restless, by US director Gus van Sant who accepted last year’s Stockholm Visionary Award; Play, by Swedish director Ruben Östlund, an entry in Directors’ Fortnight at Cannes; The Future, by US director Miranda July, which was launched at the Berlinale.

Danish producer and Zentropa Entertainments co-founder Peter Aalbæk Jensen will host one of the master classes on the Industry Office’s schedule, which also has seminars on current topics of Swedish cinema such as Renegotiating the Film Agreement – A Look into the Future of Swedish Film, focusing on the complicated renewal of the contract between the government, the Swedish Film Institute and the industry.

Swedish Hollywood-director Lasse Hallström’s first film in Sweden since 1987, The Hypnotist (Hypnotisören), from Lars Kepler’s bestseller with Mikael Persbrandt in the lead, is one of the ten works-in-progress introduced to film professionals on November 17-18. So is Norwegian director Petter Næss’ World War 2 epic, Comrade, with UK’s Rupert Grint, Lachlan Nieboer, Germany’s Florian Lukas, David Kross and Norway’s Stig Henrik Hoff is on display.

Also showing will be Swedish director Babar Najafi’s Easy Money II (Snabba Cash II), the first of two sequels the local crowdpleaser (600,000 tickets) from Swedish author Jens Lapidus’ Stockholm Noir Trilogy, Never Fuck Up, and an unfinished novel and Swedish direcor Frederik Edfeldt’s yet untitled follow-up on his award-winning The Girl (2009).

The festival’s heaviest honorary prize – the 7-kilo Bronze Horse – will be presented to French actress Isabelle Huppert in Stockholm. ”She is the muse to the greatest of film amateurs, and at the same time her own incomparable auteur,” said the prize committee of the two-time Cannes and Venice winner.