04/06/2013 - Swedish directors Ulf Malmros, Tarik Saleh, Ronnie Sandahl Katarina Launing and Norwegian director Hans Petter Moland will benefit

Swedish director Ulf Malmros’s My So-Called Father, starring Michael Nyqvist and Vera Vitali (photo), has received €1.1 million production funding, when the Swedish Film Institute yesterday (June 3) announced a €7.2 million support package for five features and three documentaries. Malmros’s own script follows a young girl who has never met a father – when she does, he is hit by a stroke and loses his memory, and she sees a chance to make him the father she always missed.

Completing principal photography on May 3, Tarik Saleh’s thriller Tommy was allocated €700,000. Written by Anton Hagwall, it is set in the criminal underworld of Stockholm, where the wife of an escaped robber returns to claim her husband’s share in one of the largest heists in Swedish history.

A similar amount went to Ronnie Sandahl’s feature debut, Burn Heart Burn, a drama following a Swedish girl who gets a job as a housekeeper in a Norwegian middle-class family, also focusing on the changing balance of power between Sweden and Norway. Annika Hellström will produce for Anagram Produktion.

Norway has full attention in Norwegian director Hans Petter Moland’s action comedy, The Prize Idiot, a Norwegian-Danish-Swedish co-production which was given €175,000 institute money. Kick It, Swedish director Katarina Launing’s first feature, collected €150,000 for producer Gila Bergqvist Ulfung, of Breidablick; Linda May Kallestein’s script is about a 14-year-old girl, who loves football and does everything to keep up her spirits, although she is seriously ill.

The three subsidised documentaries include Rainer Hartleb’s Far from Jordbro; Gunhind Westhagen Magnor’sThe Optimists; and Titti Johnson-Helgi Felixson’s Vive La France. Another 13 productions under 70 minutes were awarded funding.