The Swedish Film Institute has contributed $3.9m (SEK 28.1m) production support for 13 new films. $1.4m (SEK 10m) of that sum is reserved for Swedish directors Ola Simonsson and Johannes Stjärne Nilsson's first feature, Sound Of Noise.
Simonsson and Nilsson have also scripted their debut which will be a French-Swedish co-production by Olivier Guerpillon and Jim Birmant for France's Bliss, Sweden's Nordisk Film and Dfm Fiktion. Their previous shorts include Nowhere Man (1996), Music for One Apartment and Six Drummers (2001), and Woman and Gramophone (2006) all of which were selected for Cannes.
'An edgy police thriller as well as an original comedy, with lots of music and romance,' is how Guerpillon describes Sound of Noise, which will be shot in 35mm cinemascope with a Swedish cast, but will target an international audience. The premiere is scheduled for autumn 2009.
Other films receiving support include: Swedish director Teresa Fabik's Princess, a Breidablick Film production about 18-year-old Maja, whose dream is to become an actress, despite being overweight, clumsy and lacking in social graces; UK director David Keating's thriller, The Wake Wood, a UK-Swedish co-production by Brendan McCarthy for Fantastic Films, with Manus Paulson's Solid Entertainment as Swedish partner; and the Danish-Swedish co-production of Danish director Charlotte Sieling's feature debut, from Nimbus and Hepp Film.
Swedish director Håkon Liu's Miss Kicki, a Lizette Jonjic production for Migma West, will be one of the five low-budget, primarily first features annually financed by the institute in conjunction with Swedish public broadcaster SVT, Swedish regional film centres Film i Väst and Filmpool Nord. The films are then distributed domestically and internationally by Nordisk Film.
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