It won’t be long before the film event of the year, Copenhagen International Film Festival 2007, kicks off. On Sunday, 2 September, the festival’s program will be launched in Dagmar and CinemaxX, where you can enjoy free drinks and get a copy of the Danish program paper. But when the festival raises the curtain on 147 fantastic films on 20 September, 11 of them will get special attention, as they compete for the festival’s Golden Swan award. The winners will be chosen exclusively by an international jury consisting of five distinguished personalities from the European film industry.



Jury President: Katinka Faragó, producer (Austria):
Even if Katinka Faragó was born in Vienna, it was in Sweden – through her lifelong collaboration with Ingmar Bergman – that she became known as a Nestor of European film production. She was still a teenager when she started as a script supervisor for Bergman on Dreams (1955). This was followed by work on classics such as Smiles of a Summer Night, The Seventh Seal, Wild Strawberries, The Silence and Shame, and she was given the nickname of ’Bergman’s right hand’. In the 1970s, she became a production manager and subsequently a producer, and she played an important role in the making of Bergman’s magnum opus, Fanny and Alexander (1982). Since then, she has produced a large number of features, from Kjell Grede’s Good Evening, Mr Wallenberg and Aki Kaurismäki’s The Match Factory Girl to Daniel Bergman’s Sunday’s Children and Reza Bagher’s Popular Music from Vittula. In her function as a Swedi sh film commissioner, she has also supported Danish films such as Pelle the Conqueror.

Bent Hamer, director, screenwriter and producer (Norway):
Bent Hamer had his debut as director and screenwriter in 1991 with the short film Sunday Dinner. He attracted international attention with his first feature, Eggs (1995), which was followed by Water Easy Reach (1998) and Kitchen Stories (2003). All these films were highly successful at the festivals in Cannes and Toronto. Most recently, he has written, directed and produced Factotum (2005) with Matt Dillon, and is in the process of completing his latest feature, O’Horten, which among others stars Ghita Nørby.

Gillies MacKinnon, director (Scotland):
Gillies MacKinnon started his film career at a relatively late stage, having worked as an art historian for many years before being admitted to the National Film and Television School in London. He had his debut with the television feature Conquest of the South Pole in 1989 and his international breakthrough with Small Faces in 1996. Since then, he has directed films as diverse as Regeneration (1997), Hideous Kinky (1998) with Kate Winslet and Tara Road (2005) with Andie MacDowell, based on Maeve Binchy’s bestseller.

Sofie Gråbøl, actress (Denmark):
In spite of her young age, Sofie Gråbøl is one of the most established names within the Danish film and theatre world. She had her debut in Henning Carlsen’s Oviri (1986), which won her a Bodil for Best Supporting Actress. The year after, she had her great breakthrough in Astrid-Henning Jensen’s Street of My Childhood. Since then, she has performed in a large number of theatre and film productions, among others Accused in 2005. She can currently be seen playing the role of vice detective Sarah Lund in Danmark Radio’s TV drama Forbrydelsen.

Tuncel Kurtiz, actor and director (Turkey):
Tuncel Kurtiz is one of Turkey’s most productive and popular actors, with scores of Turkish films and TV series as well as stage appearances in countless European countries under his belt. He made his first film appearance with Devil’s Servants in 1964 and has since appeared in more than 60 films, from Yilmaz Güney’s Umut (1970) to Code Name Coq Rouge (1989) with Stellan Skarsgård. He lived in Sweden for a number of years, where he directed the feature Lyckliga vi... (1980). Most recently, he played a central role in Fatih Akin’s latest film The Edge of Heaven.