Seven of Film i Väst’s co-productions have been selected to Berlin Film Festival 2023. Among them Milad Alami’s The Opponent, Axel Danielson and Maximilien Van Aertryck’s Fantastic Machine!, winner of the Jury Prize – Creative Vision in Sundance, and Tia Kouvo’s Family Time. Here are all Film i Väst’s co-productions:
Encounter
Family Time, Tia Kouvo. Produced by Jussi Rantamäki, Aamu Film Company in co-production with Fredrik Lange, Vilda Bomben and Film i Väst.
Synopsis: It’s Christmas time and the family is gathered. Everything goes as usual; grandfather drinks too much and grandmother is trying to keep up everyone’s mood. After Christmas, the family members go back to their own, private lives, until it’s time for yet another family occasion. This time a funeral. A tragicomic study on family dynamics, on loneliness and being together. On how we try to find connection, but don’t always succeed.
Panorama
The Opponent. Director and screenwriter: Milad Alami. Producer Annika Rogell, Tangy.
Synopsis: Iman lives with his wife Maryam and his two daughters in Sweden in an ever-changing succession of refugee hostels. Having fled his former Iranian homeland for fear of persecution, he is looking for ways to secure residence for them, and is earning extra money delivering pizzas on a snowmobile. When Maryam unexpectedly falls pregnant with a third child, and conversations with the authorities become more difficult, Iman decides to resume his career as a wrestler. Although he has promised Maryam to put the whole thing behind him, he is hoping that this will help him obtain a special residence permit as a sportsman. His skills quickly return and are appreciated in the Swedish team, but his life away from his family is not without consequences. Communication breaks down between him and his wife, who sees no reason to stay in Sweden any longer, and he is confronted with the deeper reasons for his flight.
Do You Love Me? Director and screenwriter: Tonia Noyabrova. Producer: Family Production, Anastasiya Bukovska, Danylo Kaptyukh in co-production with Jonas Kellagher, Commonground Pictures. Cloudberry have worked with parts of the post-production.
Synopsis: Ukraine, one year before the collapse of the Soviet Union. Fun-loving Kira is 17 and is a budding actor, something she has no trouble proving before her bedroom mirror to the strains of “Venus” by Bananarama. In an era known in Ukrainian as “Perebudova” or “remodelling”, colourful nylon stockings are all the rage, her parents’ generation is celebrating with caviar on toast and raising crystal glasses amidst not-quite-conformist paintings, and artistic types are wondering where they can get their hands on cheap dollars. Meanwhile, Kira retreats to the kitchen to investigate a plastic bag of flotsam from the West containing chewing gum, a glittery jumper and a can of Pepsi. Her life is about to take off, but her family and the country she lives in are beginning to fall apart. Paying great attention to (lovingly reconstructed) detail and suffused by the world of objects, Tonia Noyabrova’s semi-autobiographical coming-of-age story depicts the advent of self-reliance as a farewell to the illusions of childhood. Interweaving several episodes, her film chronicles the creeping but radical transformation that is taking place. The path to independence is uncertain and sometimes painful.
Heroico. David Zonana. Produced by Teorma in co-production with Jonas Kellagher, Commonground Pictures. Parts of the post-production is made by Cloudberry.
Synopsis: For young men in Mexico who are desperate to escape a life of poverty and lack of prospects, often the only option is to find work in organisations characterised by violence – either the illegal ones to be found in the drug trade, or in the military. Since his mother is ill and in need of expensive medication, 18-year-old Luis – who has Indigenous roots – opts for the latter. The national military academy, or “Heroico Colegio Militar”, is steeped in tradition. Here, Luis experiences an extremely rigorous training programme built upon unconditional obedience and the breaking of an individual’s personality. When he receives further lessons in cruelty and criminal machinations from the sadistic Sergeant Serra, the rift between his responsibility to his mother and his own values pushes him to his limits. Based on personal accounts of the experiences of former cadets at the military academy, David Zonana’s Heroico depicts a world that is unknown to many. In an impressive mixture of clear-cut static images and powerful tracking shots, he attempts to fathom the close relationship between male identity and institutionalised violence in Mexico.
Generation
And the king said, what a Fantastic Machine! Screenwriter, director, producer: Axel Danielson och Maximilien Van Aertryck Plattform Produktion
Synopsis: And the King Said, What a Fantastic Machine is a plunge into the vast historic ocean of media culture. From the birth of the camera obscura to the screening of the first moving picture and from the invention of the webcam to the first viral video, the witty and thought-provoking documentary chases the rise of image culture as we know it. By collaging historic archive material of great dictators parading in front of cheering crowds with home videos, live-streaming content and clips of thrill-seekers hanging out at the top of a skyscraper, or harrowing press photography exhibiting violence, it offers an emblematic study of cinema and the social history it creates: What are the implications of being exposed to the billions of images competing for our attention?
Gösta Petter-land. Christer Wahlberg.
Synopsis: For Nisse, Fabian, Gabbe, Simon and Valter, school is simply super boring. To escape, they make up an imaginary forest chicken world and name it: “George-Peterland”. Needless to say, it is an adult and teacher-free zone! To protect it from possible intruders, they speak their own cryptic language and strictly follow a set of rules. More and more children want to ride the purple dream bus to this enticing place, but soon their utopia is at risk.
Madden. Malin Ingrid Johansson.
Synopsis: To Madden, the muddy road from the gateway of her family’s farm to the nearby small town seems like a threshold to another world. But in glittery high heels and a sparkling mini dress, she defies obstacles and sets out to cross the dark forest. Malin Ingrid Johansson’s mystical coming-of-age film feels like flipping a light switch in the dark, where a girl’s longing for new horizons is mirrored in bovine gazes shining in the night.
