20/06/2005

The English-born director Colin Nutley who has been living and working in Sweden for over 20 years, is going to attend the upcoming Karlovy Vary International Film Festival with his lead actress and life partner Helena Bergström for the gala premiere on July 3rd of his film The Queen of Sheba’s Pearls [+see also:
trailer
film profile] screening in competition at the festival.

Nutley has made a dozen feature films in Swedish language, including the popular House of Angels in 1992 and Under The Sun, nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign language film in 1999. But this is the director’s first English language film, set in post-war England in 1952.
It’s the story of teenager Jack, following the haunting death of his beloved mother Emily during the war. On the day of his 16th birthday, the door bell rings and a beautiful Swedish stranger who is the spitting image of his mother appears before his family, looking for lodging in their vacant basement flat. Guardian angel or unquiet ghost? She is in fact his mother’s twin separated from his mother at birth and transported abroad.

Aside Swedish star actress Helena Bergström, the cast includes Peter Vaughn, Eileen Atkins, Elizabeth Spriggs, Natasha Little and Lorcan Cranitch, and Nutley’s usual Dop Jens Fischer won a 2004 Guldbagge award (Swedish Oscar) for his cinematography in the film.
The Queen of Sheba’s Pearls is a Swedish/UK co-production between Nutley’s production outfit Sweetwater Film and AKA Pictures. The film was also co-financed by Svensk Filmindustri, -as most Nutley’s films-, Swedish broadcaster TV4 with support from the Swedish Film Institute and the Nordisk Film & TV Fund.

The film was released in Sweden by Svensk Filmindustri on December 25th 2004 and had over 130,000 admissions. According to Ann-Kristin Westerberg, Head of Svensk Filmindustri’s international division, the film has been sold so far to Rialto Entertainment for Australia and New Zealand, and CDI for Latin America.
«After Karlovy Vary, we will see what kind of attention the film will receive», she told Cineuropa.