06/03/2003

Yesterday, 5 March, the Swedish Film Academy awarded the Kurt Linderska grant of SEK20,000 (Euros2,176) to a 28-year-old director called Baker Karim. The award is assigned annually to a person under 35 who has made a significant contribution to filmmaking.
“Karim –who is originally from Uganda and has studied film in the USA- has shown in both short and feature length format, an original vision of human behaviour and social interplay. His camera is both inquisitive and able to discreetly adapt to the description of small details in a changeable Sweden,” stated the Academy.
Karim graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in Fine Arts from Otis College of Arts in Los Angeles and completed extensive film workshops in directing, screenwriting and photography at the American Film Institute. He worked on feature films as assistant director/production manager at Concorde/New Horizon before settling in Sweden where he directed two short films entitled 24 Hours With Tobias and Malcolm a Memfis Film & TV production, selected for 2002 Critics’ Week in Cannes. Karim wrote, directed, produced, edited and photographed the two feature films he has made to date, Four Women (2001) and Apathy (2001). His brother, Alexander (often associated with Karim’s films) starred in Apathy, a mind-blowing road movie shot over one month in Copenhagen, Berlin, London, Paris, Barcelona and Amsterdam. New Horizons Film & TV are handling the international sales of this title which is scheduled for release in Sweden next summer.