FRIDAY, March 29, 2024
nationthailand

Sweden through the lens

Sweden through the lens

The Swedish Film Festival opens Thursday night with coming-of-age tale "Young Sophie Bell"

Sweden is once again under the spotlight as the Swedish Film Festival returns for its fifth edition to SF World Cinema from Thursday through September 11.
Organised by the Embassy of Sweden in Bangkok in collaboration with SF World Cinema, the festival kicks off with “Young Sophie Bell”, the directorial debut of Amanda Adolfsson. A coming-of-age tale, it’s centred on two recent high-school graduates who celebrate the end of term by going to Berlin where Alice mysteriously disappears and Sophie is forced to take a life-changing journey. It shows again on September 10 at 5.30pm.
The film was earlier shown at the Stockholm Film Festival, which continues to favour female filmmakers. In 2014 alone, 60 out of 200 directors at the festival were women and the festival introduced the Feature Film Award for female directors with support from various companies and institutions.
Director John O Olssen, whose film “Viskan Miracles”, screens on September 11, and Hanna Asp, star of fantasy horror “The Circle”, showing on September 9 and 11, will attend the opening ceremony but due to time constraints will not take part in any Q&A sessions.
Other highlights are “We are the Best” (showing September 10 at 3.30pm), a musical that has won 13 prizes from international film festivals including the Tokyo and Venice events. It tells the story of three 13-year-old girls forced to take care of themselves way too early in life. They start a punk band without any instruments, even though everybody says that punk is dead.
The only documentary is the film “Astrid” (showing next Friday, 6.30pm), which depicts the life of the best-selling Swedish author Astrid Lindgren. One of the world’s 10 most-read authors, she is best known for the children’s book series featuring Pippi Longstocking. The documentary gathers archive materials to tell the life of the late novelist.
Award-winning comedy “Underdog” (showing September 10, 7pm) by Ronnie Sandahl tells the story of Dino, a young Swedish girl (played by comedian Bianca Kronlof) who finds a job in Norway’s capital Oslo as a housekeeper for a former tennis player.
“Nice People” (showing Thursday at 8pm and September 11 at 5.30pm) depicts a group of young men who fled the war in Somalia and ended up in a rural town in Sweden where integration is tough. Local entrepreneur Patrik Andersson decides to use sport as the bridge to bring people together by creating the first ever Somali national team in the winter sport of bandy.
All films have English subtitles. Thai subtitles are available for selected films.
Ticket costing Bt120 can be purchased in advance at www.SFCinemaCity.com.

 

nationthailand