UFOs, MMA and Mediterranean film noir

Daughters by Jenifer Malmqvist. Photo: Ita Zbroniec-Zajt

Björn Runge (The Wife) directs Burn All My Letters, a love story across generations. Ahmed Abdullahi (The Martyr) directs Amina, about a MMA fighting mother. Daughters is Jenifer Malmqvist’s feature film debut about three sisters mourning their mother and Axel Petersén returns with From Malta to Oblivion about online gaming.

Anders Hazelius directs Forever, scripted by Jessika Jankert. The film follows Mila and Kia best friends and soccer teammates. When the team get a new coach, the girls slowly start to slip apart. Mila who dreams of becoming a professional finally sees her chance to succeed - but is it worth sacrificing her best friend?

The comedy The Hypnosis (Hypnosen), directed by Ernst De Geer, scripted by De Geer and Mads Stegger, follows Vera and André, who are about to pitch their newly started company. Before they go there, Vera goes into hypnotherapy which makes her let go of all social barriers. This is difficult for André to handle.

Burn All My Letters (Bränn alla mina brev), scripted by Veronica Zacco and based on the Alex Schulman novel of the same name, is a love story across generations. The film follows a painful relationship drama spanning from the 1930s, through the ’80s and into the present day. Asta Kamma August, Bill Skarsgård and Gustav Lindh are in the leads.

The collective force Crazy Pictures follows up the success The Unthinkable (Den blomstertid nu kommer) with sci-fi adventure UFO Sweden. When a teenage rebel suspects that her father is not dead but kidnapped by UFOs, she enlists the help of a UFO association to find out the truth. Together, they embark on a risky adventure that takes them far beyond the law and into a world filled with UFO expeditions, conspiracies, and alternative science.

From Malta to Oblivion is an energetic, sensual Mediterranean film noir about guilt, escape and forgiveness, in the shadow of the Swedish online gaming colony in Malta. The film is written and directed by Axel Petersén and features Joel Spira (Bergman Island) in one of the lead roles. Petersén’s latest film The Real Estate (Toppen av ingenting, 2018, co-directed with Måns Månsson) competed at the Berlinale.

Daughters (Döttrar) is Jenifer Malmqvist’s feature film debut, following shorts that have won awards in Berlin as well as at the Guldbagge Awards. The documentary follows three sisters who have grown up mourning their mother’s suicide. In the film we meet the sisters both as children, and now as young adults, as they reflect on what it’s like growing up in the wake of a trauma. Guldbagge Award winner Ita Zbroniec-Zajt is the cinematographer.

Vem är du, Mamma Mu (English title TBA), directed by Christian Ryltenius with screenplay by Peter Arrhenius, is an adventure for young children. Mamma Moo the cow wants to make her very own moo-sical, but Little Brother’s teddy bear disappears under mysterious circumstances – and it’s Mamma Moo’s fault.

Successful athlete or good mother? In the drama Amina, scripted by Mona Masri (TV series Snabba Cash) and directed by Guldbagge Award winner Ahmed Abdullahi, Amina is forced to make a tough choice. Her passion for Mixed Martial Arts clashes with her responsibility for her daughter.

Erika Wasserman, also the screenwriter alongside Christin Magdu, makes her directorial debut with the comedy The Year I Started Masturbating (Året jag slutade prestera och började onanera). Results-driven 39-year-old career woman Hanna suddenly finds herself homeless, jobless and without a family. She refuses to give up though, but first she must learn to love herself. The cast includes Katia Winter (TV series The Boys and Dexter) and Henrik Dorsin (also in Ruben Östlund’s upcoming Triangle of Sadness).

Maja Borg works with cross-border issues relating to longing, vulnerability and power in the Swedish-Spanish documentary Passion. Through play and rituals taken from queer, BDSM and religion, she explores intimacy and boundaries. The project, which is being launched as a film and artwork in one, is already well received at international film festivals.

Market funding
Håkan Bråkan by Ted Kjellsson (Alone in Space/Ensamma i rymden) is a spinoff from the Tosh/Anderssons films, where Tosh’s little brother Håkan wants to win a video game competition. He has to escape from the babysitter and ends up on a collision course with a gang of burglars. Market funding has also been awarded to Burn All My Letters and UFO Sweden.

Read more and see images from the latest projects to be awarded funding.