She Monkeys and Ebbe directors eye €0.8 million scholarship for next movies

by Jorn Rossing Jensen

27/10/2011 - Swedish award-winning directors Jane Magnusson and Lisa Aschan are among the nominées for the first €0.8 million feature film scholarship which Sweden's Stockholm International Film Festival will give to a woman director at the beginning of her career, it was announced today (October 27).

From 32 submissions, the festival has selected five top candidates: "Their projects are outstanding, both in style and narrative; original stories which we want to see on films in Sweden," said Stockholm Programme Director and jury member George Ivanov.

The winner, whose film is secured a slot in next year's showcase, will receive the prize at the October 19 awards ceremony, including cash, services and a Nordic-Baltic distribution contract from Sweden's NonStop Entertainment. Runners-up each get €27,5000.

Magnusson, a journalist-writer-turned-director whose Ebbe: The Movie (2009) won a Guldbagge - Sweden's national film trophy - as well as the Critics' Award, will shoot The Girlfriend for Gädda Five (Fatima Varhos). Based on Karolina Ramqvist's novel it follows a young, newly engaged woman who spends the weekend at the house that her friend - a successful criminal gang leader - has just given her.

Credited with a couple of shorts and television series, Aschan's feature debut She Monkeys [trailer] was launched earlier this year and awarded in Göteborg (Best Nordic Film, FIPRESCI) and later in Tribeca-New York. Her new film Förvaret is adapted from a play by Sweden's Johannes Anyuru and Aleksander Morrotiswhich was staged at Göteborgs Stadsteater in 2009. Anna Maria Kantarius will produce for Garagefilm International AB.

Also considered for the funding are Wing-Wee Wu's Invasion, from Jonas Hassen Khemiri's play (John Nordling/Essingen Global); Stina Bergman's Love Can Wait, about a birthday party in the aristocracy (Lizette Jonjic/Migma Film AB); and Sofia Norlin's Tenderness, about the city of Kiruna and its future (Olivier Guerpillon/DFM Fiktion).