By Werner Busch. The history of Swedish cinema is the story of a number of names that resonate massively within the international cinematic community – and not just phonetically. Silent movie pioneers like Victor Sjöström and Mauritz Stiller paved the way for the international prestige of Swedish cinema – which lead to actresses Greta Garbo and Ingrid Bergman being embraced by Hollywood later in the century. The production and distribution company Svensk Filmindustri, founded in 1919, dominated and decided the fate of the whole Swedish film industry as a whole for the following decades. This was true especially because of their steady collaboration with Ingmar Bergman, which made Swedish films a permanent fixture in world cinema, especially during the 1950s and 1960s. At the same time this also meant an economic crisis for the Swedish film industry, mostly because of the advent of television. A far reaching reform became necessary. That initiated not only the Swedish Film Award in 1963 but also the founding of the Svenska Filminstitutet, which decisively supported the production and distribution of Swedish films and facilitated international co-productions.

More Money for Fewer Films

Until this day, the bulk of Swedish productions is financed with the help of the National Film Institute. Which is why a regrouping of funds that has recently come into effect has dangerous consequences. On the one hand, there is now more money available for each production, but on the other hand there are overall fewer productions being financed. This has lead in 2008 to an output of only 14 financially supported feature films, although the number of Swedish films had since the 1990s doubled to an average of 17 films a year around 2005.

A New Generation of Directors

Geographically, too, there is a deep shift occurring with the younger generation of filmmakers – more and more productions leave the cinematic stronghold and capital Stockholm in favour for the periphery of the country. The driving force of this development was the success of the film production centre „Film i Väst“ (Films in the West) near Trollhättan, where all the famous Swedish pictures of recent years were made – including many nationally successful feature films by Josef Fares (Kops) and Lukas Moodysson (Together!, Lilja 4-ever). With Bent Hamer and Tomas Alfredson these filmmakers form a new generation of immensely talented Swedish directors. With the exception of Alfredson, whose film Let the right one in won the main prize at the Göteborg International Film Festival, they are all alumni of the Dramatiska Institutet or the Stockholms Filmskola. They advance the traditions of Swedish cinema in the international film world and secure a strong standing of their films at home: These days every fifth cinema ticket bought in Sweden is for a Swedish movie.

Links

• Dramatiska Institutet
• Stockholms Filmskola
• Kulturama
• SAE
• Högskolan Väst
• Göteborg International Film Festival
• Stockholm International Film Festival
• Uppsala International Short Film Festival
• Schwedisches Filminstitut
• Svensk Filmindustri
• Film i Väst

• SLAVES (SE 2008. David Aronowitsch, Hanna Heilborn)
• STIG (S 2007. Tomas Norström)