The Swedish Film Institute will stage a majorreshuffle of its organisation, implementing new measures to better reach thegoals of Swedish film policy, and to improve the quality of Swedish cinema.Both production volume and personnel will be radically reduced.

"We want to take a more active role in theSwedish film industry, where we can become still more useful," said theinstitute's new managing director, Cissi Elwin, at a press conference inStockholm's Film House on Thursday.

On Dec 15, Swedish producer Charlotte Denward willstart as head of the institute's department for production support, which isone of the areas Elwin will give top priority. Swedish cinema audiences arecurrently not drawn to local features.

"Today many projects are under-financed,"Elwin explained. "We will increase our investment in the films from anaverage of 25% to 40%, to support 20 features annually, and we have started aproject to develop low-budget productions for first or second-time directors."

This year the Swedish Film Institute has supported 30films, out of about 44 releases, so the new policy will reduce the number ofpublicly subsidised productions by a third. Elwin also announced that the 122institute staff will be slashed by 20.

The institute operates on an annual budget of $63.2m (Euros47.7m), including $42.4m (Euros 32m) from the government, the rest from theagreement between state and the industry. New initiatives include a website "forthe whole business", as well as www.dvoted.se, for youngsters.

Denward was a consultant-commissioning editor at theinstitute between 1966-2000, where she backed such features as Fucking Amal! and Tsatsiki,Mum and the Policeman. For the last seven years been a producer atSwedish independent FilmLance International.