Fast Cash (Snabba Cash), the first part of Swedish lawyer-author Jens Lapidus’ best-selling Stockholm Noir trilogy, is on the way to the big screen.

The Swedish Film Institute has chipped in $1.1m (SEK 8.3m) for the feature which will be produced by Fredrik Wikström for Sweden’s Tre Vänner Produktion.

Danish-Swedish director Daniel Espinosa will helm the thriller which follows a Swedish country boy’s career in Stockholm’s underground crime world. Starring Joel Kinnaman, Dragomir Mrsic and Matias Padin, the film was scripted by Maria Karlsson. It will be launched in January 2010.

The institute has also backed Henrik Hellström and Fredrik Wenzel’s Burrowing (Man Tänker Sitt) with $200,000 (SEK 1.8m). Hellström-Wenzel penned the story of an 11-year-old boy who – from an elevated spot on his playground – surveys his neighbourhood. The film was screened in the Forum at the recent Berlinale.

Meanwhile, Swedish directors David Aronowitsch and Staffan Lindberg received $100,000m (SEK 1m) for their full-length documentary following one of the Khmer Rouge leaders during and after the Pol Pot regime in Cambodia/Kampuchea. Aronowitsch is producing for his own Story Films and the film is expected to be ready by 2010.

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