Editor

This November the Stockholm International Film Festival, together with Telia, the Swedish Film Institute and the Trade association of companies involved in the technical production of moving pictures in Sweden, will hand out a unique production fund for a feature film. The recipient will be a Swedish female director in the beginning of her career who will be given the opportunity to realize her film. The resulting film will premier at the Stockholm International Film Festival the following year.

Since 1990 the Stockholm International Film Festival has handed out the short film scholarship “1 Kilometer Film,” which has been an indicator of who is up-and-coming in Swedish film. The feature film production fund is a further development of the investment in Swedish talent. For the last few years the festival has also worked actively to promote and acknowledge female directors.

“In our daily work we come across many interesting international film productions without gigantic budgets. This is what initially inspired us to create the fund. We see an opportunity to encourage both Swedish directing talent and promote female filmmakers,” says Git Scheynius, Festival Director of the Stockholm International Film Festival.

The Swedish telecommunications company Telia is the largest private investor in the project.

“We hope that the production fund will contribute to the innovation of Swedish film and be a source of support for the directors of tomorrow. From experience we know that our costumers love Swedish film. Seven out of ten rented films in our video on demand service were Swedish during 2010,” says Stefan Trampus, Head of Broadband Services at Telia.

“We share our partner’s enthusiasm for the production fund and see it as a good opportunity, together with the Film Institute’s other efforts, to increase the number of female directors. By only inviting female directors to apply, it will further enhance our goal to support equality within the industry,” says Lars G. Lindström, Feature Film Commissioner at the Swedish Film Institute.

Application rules will be made official in June 2011, and the nominees will be released this autumn. The winner will be announced at the Stockholm International Film Festival in November 2011, and the produced film will premier at the festival the following year.