Isabella Carbonell’s Dogborn selected for Venice Film Festival

Philip Oros and Silvana Imam in Dogborn. Photo by Maja Dennhag.

Swedish director Isabella Carbonell's feature film debut Dogborn has been selected for the Venice Film Festival. The film, a suspenseful drama about a pair of twins on the fringes of society who are drawn into crime, will have its world premiere at the 37th Venice International Film Critics’ Week.

– It's probably every director's dream to reach people, far and wide, with their story. And that's why it's so goddamn exhilarating to be able to share Dogborn in Venice, as this opens up the opportunity to reach far more people than I ever could have hoped for. The film's characters have been waiting for years to step into the limelight and I can't imagine a better platform than this one. I'm ridiculously happy and feel very privileged, says writer-director Isabella Carbonell.

Homeless and invisible – the Twins are constantly struggling to survive. Sister is a ticking time bomb, her screams are loud. Brother on the other hand doesn’t speak but rather screams inwards. Their dream of a real home leads to an unexpected job opportunity that sounds simple enough: transport goods from point A to point B. But when the goods appear in the form of two young girls the unspeakable happens: a rift suddenly occurs between Brother and Sister. Over the course of two intense days the twins are forced to make a life-altering decision: how far are they willing to go in their quest for a better future?

Dogborn stars Swedish Grammy-winning rapper Silvana Imam in her acting debut, along with Philip Oros (Blinded, 2019 and Dough, 2021). The film also stars Emma Lu, Mia Liu, Lukas Malinauskas, Henrik Norlén, Hannes Meidal, Rikard Svensson and Richard Ulfsäter.  

Upcoming writer-director Isabella Carbonell attracted attention for her short film Boys (2015), which was selected for the Critic’s Week at Cannes and also competed at South by Southwest, Giffoni and AFI Fest, where it picked up the Grand Jury Award. Carbonell also directed short film Maniac (2016), which won the award for Best Underground Film at Venice Film Week.

Dogborn, her feature film debut, will world premiere at the 37th Settimana Internazionale delle Critica (Venice International Film Critics' Week), the independent and parallel section of the Venice International Film Festival.

Dogborn is written and directed by Isabella Carbonell and produced by Farima Karimi, Erik Andersson and David Herdies for Momento Film. The film is co-produced with NonStop Winning Formula, Läsk and Karimi Film, with support from the Swedish Film Institute (former Film Commissioner Helen Ahlsson) and SVT through the Moving Sweden initiative, and from Norrköping Film Fund, with development support from Sthlm Debut and La semaine de la critique's Next Step. The film is distributed domestically by NonStop Entertainment, with expected Swedish cinema release in early 2023. International sales handled by TrustNordisk.

The Venice Film Festival will take place August 31 – September 10.

For further questions, please contact
Nicolai Korsgaard, TrustNordisk: nicolai@trustnordisk.com