16 Swedish films to CPH:DOX

Ridge by John Skoog. Photo by Plattform Produktion.

Swedish film holds a strong position at this year’s CPH:DOX in Copenhagen, one of the world’s leading documentary film festivals, which opens on the 20th of March. Seven Swedish films will compete, while a total of 16 will be screened at the Danish festival. A Stranger by Mikel Cee Karlsson and Ridge by John Skoog will both screen in the main competition Dox:Award.

Swedish films in competition:

John Skoog’s poetic Ridge was recently awarded the Sven Nykvist Cinematography Award at the Gothenburg Film Festival, for director of photography Ita Zbroniec-Zajt’s work. The film has now been selected for the main competition Dox:Award, along with Mikel Cee Karlsson’s documentary A Stranger, which will have its world premiere at the festival. Both films were produced by Erik Hemmendorff of Plattform Produktion, who also produces Ruben Östlund’s films, most recently Palme d’Or winner The Square.

No less than four Swedish films have been selected for the Nordic countries’ competition section, Nordic:Dox Award. Lina Mannheimer’s Mating, an intimate portrayal of two 20-somethings’ lives from the perspective of dating, sex and love, was produced by Mathilde Dedye and Isabella Rodriguez for French Quarter Film. Viktor Nordenskiöld’s The Feminister follows the world’s only feminist foreign minister, Swedish Margot Wallström, in a film produced by Nordenskiöld and Malcolm Dixelius for FreetownFilms. Sivandivan is the story of flamboyant Swedish opera singer Siv Wennberg, directed by Gustav Ahlgren and Emelie Jönsson, who also produced the film along with Daniel Pynnönen for Ett Riktigt Produktionsbolag. And finally, Emily Norling’s All We Own, the story of homeless heroin addicts Curtis and Johan, in a documentary on drug abuse and co-dependence in Stockholm. The film was produced by Mónica Hernández Rejón and Kalle Jansson for Pråmfilm.

Fredrik Gertten, the filmmaker behind Bikes vs Cars and Bananas!, is back. His new film PUSH zones in on the international housing market, and competes in the F:ACT Award section. PUSH was produced by Margarete Jangård for WG Film, and will have its world premiere in Copenhagen.

Additional Swedish films at the festival:

Caroline Troedsson’s Patriotic Highway, investigating corruption and the diplomatic power play in Kosovo; The Heart is a Drum by Jacob Frössén, on German krautrock band NEU!; The Climate Experiment by Mats Bigert and Lars Bergström, on artist duo Bigert & Bergström’s climate-change art; and Charismatic Megafauna, a visual odyssey investigating the future, directed by Jesper Kurlandsky and Fredrik Wenzel.

Also screening are Stieg Larsson: The Man Who Played with Fire by Henrik Georgsson, Rotterdam-winner Transnistra by Anna Eborn, Johannes Nyholm’s nightmarish thriller Koko-di Koko-da, Anna Odell’s identity escapade X&Y, and Mia Engberg’s Lucky One, which recently won the Eurimages’ Audentia Award at the Gothenburg Film Festival.

At last year’s CPH:DOX, Marcus Lindeen’s The Raft, which was nominated for two Swedish Guldbagge Awards, nabbed the main prize Dox:Award.

This year’s festival will be held between the 20th and 31st of March. Read more about CPH:DOX here.