Wild Card continues: a mega-boost for the filmmakers of tomorrow

Directors Jonathan Nikolaj Heinius, Nathalie Álvarez Mesén (on the stick) and Amanda Björk were the recipients of the 2019 Wild Card grant. Photo by Catherine Jarl, The Swedish Film Institute

In 2018 the Swedish Film Institute launched Wild Card, a funding initiative enabling new film school graduates to develop a feature film idea. For the third consecutive year, Wild Card is now continuing to find the unique Swedish film voices of tomorrow. Applications open on 1 June, and the selected projects will be announced during the Stockholm Film Festival Industry Days in November.

Directors Fanny Ovesen, Jerry Carlsson and Ernst De Geer were the first recipients of the funding. At the time, both Ovesen and De Geer were recent graduates of the Norwegian Film School, while Jerry Carlsson came from Alma Manusutbildning and had previously trained as a director and producer at Valand Academy. Fanny Ovesen’s Laura is being produced by B-Reel Films, Ernst De Geer has signed a deal with Garagefilm for work on his feature Hypnosis (Hypnosen), and Jerry Carlsson and Verket Produktion are currently working on the feature film project Fires (Bränder). All three filmmakers are currently busy developing their feature films and are planning to shoot during 2021.

Recipients of Wild Card funding in 2019 were Nathalie Álvarez Mesén for The Wolf Will Tear Your Immaculate Hands (Vargen biter sönder dina rena händer), Amanda Björk for her film Hysterika, and Jonathan Nikolaj Heinius for Sophisticated Failing (Köttstålars). Nathalie Álvarez Mesén trained at Columbia University in New York, while both Amanda Björk and Jonathan Nikolaj Heinius attended the Stockholm Academy of Dramatic Arts, studying the TV producer and documentary filmmaking programmes respectively. All three are now preparing their film outlines, for shooting later in summer/autumn 2020.

Wild Card will now continue for a further year.

– It’s hard enough getting into the film industry straight after school at the best of times. Add a global pandemic and you may even lose your confidence. Right now, it is especially important that Wild Card continues. We all know we have to carry on socially distancing a while, but we’re staying close to the film schools and providing a mega-boost for students who, we hope, are bursting with good stories. All unique new film voices out there are welcome to submit an application, says Helen Ahlsson, Film Commissioner for Moving Sweden at the Swedish Film Institute.

Wild Card is a development funding initiative for newly graduated Swedish film directors (graduation year 2020) from any post-high school film programme. The funding is for a film outline for a feature-length film in fiction, or a hybrid with a focus on fiction. The aim of Wild Card is to carry on capturing unique film voices from the various film schools, and to give new directors an opportunity to start making film soon after graduating.

Winning projects will receive a development award of SEK 400,000. The selection group comprises the Film Institute’s Head of Talent and Film Commissioners for fiction: children and young people, short film and new formats, feature-length film and Moving Sweden. The funding is open for application from 1 June, and the final date for applications is 21 September. The selected projects will be announced during the Stockholm Film Festival Industry Days on 17–19 November.

For further questions, please contact:
Helen Ahlson, Film Commissioner Moving Sweden, helen.ahlsson@filminstitutet.se, +46 8 665 12 26
Lina Norberg Johansson, Head of Talent, lina.norberg@filminstitutet.se, +46 8 665 12 27