26/03/2009

Plattform Produktion, arthouse distributor Folkets Bio and Sweden’s leading online film service, Headweb.com, have agreed to release Mikel Cee Karlsson’s documentary Greetings from the Woods simultaneously in the cinemas and on the Internet this Friday, March 27, at 6:30 pm.

Sweden’s innovative Platform Production, which produced Ruben Östlund’s Involuntary [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Erik Hemmendorff
interview: Ruben Östlund
film profile] and Patrik Eriksson’s An Extraordinary Study in Human Degradation, shot on a mobile phone, are behind this new initiative.

“Right now, we are living in truly exciting times for the moving image,” said Erik Hemmendorff, producer and co-owner of Plattform. “We filmmakers, producers and distributors who produce those images have the responsibility to make sure the most important images of our common human existence remain available for all, and not only for those who live in major cities. Seeing a movie on the silver screen is a unique experience that will not disappear. But we also believe that the audience is now going to want to see a film both at the cinema and on the Internet.”

Bettan von Horn at Folkets added: “It’s great to get to a more expansive stage of our work and to reach out for the audience, even outside the cinema. It is a natural development in ongoing digital distribution and film showings on different platforms.”

In his film debut Greetings from the Woods, Karlsson captured people in a small village deep inside the Swedish forest over the course of four years. The film, which premiered at the latest Göteborg Film Festival, was produced by Platfform in co-production with Film i Väst, Film i Halland and SVT, with support from the Swedish Film Institute.