Relationships, growing up and magic juice

Bamse and the World’s Smallest Adventure. Photo: Nordisk Film

The world’s strongest bear is back in Bamse and the World’s Smallest Adventure. The documentary The Dear John Letter looks at self-destructive behaviours with drugs in the formative years. The short film The Remains of Roma looks at the difficulty for women to ‘deliver’. Funding has also been granted to seven talent programmes to ensure regrowth in Swedish film. These are just some of the latest funding projects.

Christian Ryltenius, director of quality children’s titles such as Pelle Svanslös and Mamma Moo Finds Her Way Home (Mamma Mu hittar hem) is back with a new film about Bamse, the world’s strongest bear: Bamse and the World’s Smallest Adventure. Scripted by Calle Marthin and Mikael Syrén, this time the focus is on Bamse’s daughter Nalle-Maja. She drinks some magic XYZ juice and becomes tiny. Will the others find her, and is it possible to make a difference when you’re as small as an ant? The film is made by the team behind Bamse and the Volcano Island (Bamse och vulkanön), and once again Bamse is voiced by Rolf Lassgård (A Man Called Ove). The film has been granted market funding.

Family Time is the first feature by Tia Kouvo, and is produced by Fredrik Lange, recent Rotterdam award winner with Excess Will Save Us. The film is a Finnish-Swedish co-production about sisters Susanna, Helena and Helena’s daughter Hilla, and looks at themes of kinship, loneliness and belonging at Christmastime. Kouvo studied at Valand in Gothenburg where Ruben Östlund also began his career.

The documentary The Dear John Letter is the directorial debut of cinematographer Bill Watts. He aims to find out why his old friends have led such self-destructive lives. Each of them has been carrying a secret that none of them have ever dared talk about – until now. A film about brutal formative years involving drugs, and how new information suddenly changes everything.

The short film The Remains of Roma (Romas ruiner) by Jenny Palén Ejstes and Stina Persson Helleday exists in its own universe inspired by classical antiquity and modern times. The film looks at the difficulty for women to ‘deliver’ within far too narrow a living space. The cast includes Zhala Rifat, who is also in Lovisa Sirén’s upcoming Maya Nilo (Laura).

The seven talent programmes to be granted funding include Talent Week on Fårö which focuses on networking and master classes during Bergman Week, Archipelago Script Lab, and the talent lab Norrland brinner, in which five northern Swedish regions are collaborating on programmes in Sundsvall.

Read more and view images from the latest projects to be granted funding.