25/01/2005 - At last night’s ceremony of the Guldbagge Awards(Swedish Oscars) in Stockholm, the jury of 31 members voted for the new generation of Swedish cinema, giving most awards to two films from upcoming talents.

At last night’s ceremony of the Guldbagge Awards (Swedish Oscars) in Stockholm, the jury of 31 members voted for the new generation of Swedish cinema, giving most awards to two films from upcoming talents. Dalecarlians, the directorial debut of Maria Blom won the Best film, Best screenplay (written by the director) and Best actress in a supporting role (Kajsa Ernst), while Four Shadows of Brown, the first feature film by Swedish popular comedy group Killinggänget, swept the other four major awards. Tomas Alfredson was named Best director, Robert Gustafsson Best actor, Maria Kulle Best actress, and Ulf Brunnberg Best actor in a supporting role.

The prestigious prizes for Dalecarliansis yet another personal success for its producer Lars Jönsson from Memfis Film who previously launched the careers of Lukas Moodysson and Josef Fares, and saw the filmmaking potential of stage director and playwright Maria Blom. “We worked a long time on developing Maria Blom’s first film, but she has a very personal voice and we always saw the potential in her”, Jönsson told Cineuropa.
Portraying the life of three sisters in a small village of Central Sweden, the film is about feeling like a foreigner at home. Co-produced by Memfis Film with Film i Väst, Sverige Television AB, Zentropa Entertainments with support from the SFI- Svenska Filminstitutet/ Swedish Film Institute, the film is still number one at the Swedish box office after a 6 weeks run and is yet another local hit for its distributor Sonet Film .

Four Shades of brown which tells four stories that all touch on life’s turning points, is the film debut of Killinggänget (‘killing gang’), the makers of several successful comedy shows for TV and stage in Sweden. The group comprises director and co-writer Tomas Alfredson as well as 6 other members who all co-wrote and acted in the film. Produced by Swedish public broadcaster Sverige Television AB with support from the Swedish Film Institute, the Nordic Film & TV Fund and Nordisk Film, the film is sold internationally by AB Svensk Filmindustri.

The other winner of the Gulbagge Awards was Colin Nutley’s The Queen of Sheba’s Pearls which won Best cinematography (Jens Fisher) and Best sound and original score (Lasse Liljeholm and Eddie Axberg), while Russian film The Return by Andrei Zvyagintsev was elected Best foreign language film of the year. Finally Swedish actress Sickan Carlsson was handed with a lifetime achievement award and actor Mikael Persbrandt with the 2004 Ingmar Bergman award.